Deceptive Memory
by sagas.pen
Summary: #2 in the Heart's Blood series. Logan has searched for his past lo these many decades without ever considering the consequences. When those memories are unlocked, it's up to Teva to pull him back out. Logan/OFC.
1. Chapter 1

**_Warnings: There is an attempted rape in chapter 4. Please be advised. I don't want anyone triggered (I'm a rape survivor myself, so I get it).  
_**

**_Edited and revised May 2013._**

_As noted, this is the second story in a series, following "Everything Faded." This story begins roughly 6 months after the end of EF. Please see notes at the beginning of that story if you haven't read it yet (not that this story would make much sense otherwise)._

_If you haven't read Barry Windsor-Smith's "Weapon X" graphic novel, I highly recommend you do so, and not just because I've used it as background. It's a dark, sad, violent story told beautifully. It's also available in novel form by Marc Cerasini, which helps to flesh things out a bit._

_Additionally, Logan's childhood is taken from the graphic novel "Origin" by Bill Jemas, Joe Quesada and Paul Jenkins. I know a lot of fans were perturbed by the mini for dispelling the mystery around Logan's life but I loved it._

_And, as ever, this is dedicated to my husband who is my beta, collaborator and enabler._

_~ text ~ denotes telepathic speech_

* * *

Teva had the feeling Logan had never cleaned out his closet, barely ever opened it except to throw things inside only to forget about them once they were in there. She certainly never saw him put clothes in there, his boots were always by the door, and his leather jacket was draped over the chair at his desk. And since she was in the process of moving in with him, she was going to need space for her few things.

As a child she'd always enjoyed spelunking in closets and under beds, finding objects long-since gone to disuse and saved either for sentimental value or because Scots were pack rats by nature – more than once she'd heard her father say "It might be useful some day," always thrifty. She hadn't held on to that particular habit since she'd ended up spending so much of her life on the road. You took with you what you could pack in a hurry, and what you could stand to lose. Her penthouse apartment had been rather spartan because of that, and she'd appreciated the fact that Logan seemed to hold to that ideal as well.

But, as with Logan, there were things that existed below the surface. And just like she'd rummaged around a bit in his head, going through his closet would prove interesting.

The first thing that caught her eye was a box labeled 'Costumes' in handwriting that looked suspiciously like Jubilee's. She went straight for it and discovered a mass of yellow, blue, red, brown, and tan. He'd carelessly tossed his various uniforms inside and she took them out one by one, then started snickering to herself as she held one up.

Logan was at his desk grading Japanese tests. "What's so funny?" he called.

"Does this costume seriously have whiskers on it?"

"That was my first one, back with Department H." There was a note of pride in his voice but she could tell he shared her amusement. "Fought the Hulk in it."

"It's cute," she teased as she set it aside. There was another yellow-and-blue like the one he'd worn most recently with slight differences in the blue accents up the sides and across the chest. "What's with the brown-and-tan?"

With her chattering he was never going to get through the tests, so he came and sat on the bed across from the closet where he could see what she was doing. "Wore that when I first joined the X-Men. Got sick of the other for a while."

"The yellow's kind of blinding," she agreed, carefully folding the costumes as he hadn't and replacing them in the box. "I like the brown-and-tan, but the new uniforms make sense even if black leather tends to make people think 'crazy biker' instead of 'superhero.'"

Logan snorted and pulled his humidor off the dresser, extracting a cigar and cutter. "Makes us look more like a team, according to One Eye," he replied, busying himself with the process of lighting up. "And they've got Kevlar, which I'm a big fan of."

Teva slid the box into a clear spot under some shelves and reached for another. This one was unmarked and full of numerous sheets of paper which turned out to be sketches of various X-Men and Institute residents. "These are amazing," she remarked, holding up one of Kitty Pryde in mid-pirouette, pure joy on her face.

"Thanks."

Her eyebrow rose. "You drew these?" A sly smile crossed her lips. "Always knew you were good with your hands."

He chuckled and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. "Might have to break out the sketch pad and pencils, I haven't done any in a long time. Think I could persuade ya to do some nude modeling?"

"Oh, I could definitely be persuaded." She took her time looking through the rest and she really was amazed at how good they were. Drawing was a talent she was envious of since her best efforts could be bested by a kindergartener with a palsy. Again she paid special care to replacing them unlike his haphazard efforts. The box went back where it came from.

She turned slightly to regard a long, slender wooden box that had very obviously been painstakingly carved with cherry blossoms, their blooms painted pink and white against the dark lacquer . She ran her hands over it carefully, and as she did so she felt the faintest bit of pain and apprehension from the man nearby, causing her to look at him.

"Everything alright?" she asked, seeing that his eyes held those same emotions.

"There's a reason I never look in my closet," he responded quietly, eyes suddenly gone dark and almost blank like he was trying to hide something, which was useless really when they shared a psychic link.

"Is it okay with you if I open this?"

He hesitated long enough to answer that she began to worry.

"I'll leave it alone," she finally said, moving away.

"No." The anguish in his voice was a shock to her as he got up and came to kneel inside the closet with her, next to her, and she saw that his hand was shaking as he reached out to touch the box. "Just ... let me do it."

She sat back on her heels with her hands in her lap.

Logan thumbed the latch and slowly lifted the lid to reveal two swords, one that she recognized as a _katana_ and the other what seemed to be a smaller version, both in bamboo sheathes nestled against black silk embroidered with koi fish in bright colors. "The small one is called _wakizashi_."

She picked up the basic translation over the link. "Sidearm? I guess it's backup if you lose the_ katana_?"

He nodded. "Together they're called _daishō_, 'big and small.' They're the weapons of a samurai."

"They look old. Did you pick them up while you were living in Japan?" She couldn't resist the need to touch him, to offer comfort and love even if she didn't yet understand his reaction. His arm was stiff under her hand, he was holding himself tense.

"We were in Japan, the X-Men, to help fight off some goon. I met a woman there, Mariko Yashida, and she wasn't like any other woman I've ever known, save for you. I courted her and we planned to marry." His voice was soft, pain-filled. "Her father, Lord Shingen, didn't like me and he drugged me, made me fight him. She didn't know he was actually tryin' to kill me, didn't know I was fightin' for my life. She thought I had no honor because I was going to defeat her father, so I threw the fight."

Teva decided not to interrupt, instead making a sound to let him know she was listening. "I got mixed up in some stuff there, ended up goin' berserker in front of her and she shunned me until after Shingen had died, and we started plannin' the wedding. She called it off when everyone was there for the ceremony because Mastermind had taken control of her, and when she realized what she'd done, she didn't think she was worthy of me."

His hands caressed the swords as he spoke. "Later on, after M'iko had taken over her clan, she got mixed up with the Yakuza. She tried to get her honor back, was gonna remove a finger in the old way except the knife she used was poisoned with blowfish toxin." His voice caught and he swallowed past it, eyes closing as he relived the painful memory, but he didn't protest that she was sharing it with him.

He touched the inside of the lid and it dropped down to reveal letters written in kanji and several photos, the latter of which he took out and handed to her. "She begged me to end her life so she wouldn't go painfully. And I did it, for her."

Teva took the photos and held them carefully, reverently. "She was beautiful, Logan." The topmost picture was of Mariko alone, clad in kimono and obi. She stood among blossoming cherry trees facing away from the camera in profile, a candid shot. The next was of Logan and Mariko together, and Teva could see the joy and love in his eyes as he looked at the woman he'd intended to spend the rest of his life with. Mariko was looking at the camera with a haunted expression on her face even as she smiled.

She handed back the photos and watched him put them away again, his gestures careful. "Were the swords hers?"

"Family heirloom," Logan replied as he shut the box again. "She was the last of clan Yashida and wanted someone with honor to have 'em." He sat there with his head bowed over the box.

"She chose the right man," Teva told him. She touched his shoulder and was relieved when he didn't pull away, instead letting her wrap her arms around him. "I'm sorry for digging in your closet, it was'nae my intention to stir up old ghosts."

He reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering along her cheekbone. "I shoulda said somethin' sooner."

Teva leaned her forehead against his, opening their link fully as she did so, and the force of his emotions nearly knocked her back. It was still unnerving to know she could do this, and even more unnerving to know they shared more of themselves than they would have otherwise, though she knew it was harder for Logan to accept than it was for her. The fact that he hadn't told her to get bent when he'd learned of their link still amazed her.

Flowing between them was his pain and loss,the guilt he felt that he'd failed Mariko by not being what she'd needed tempered by the knowledge he'd given her an honorable and quick death, while Teva's compassion and understanding helped to smooth over the ragged edges of the grief he still carried. Underlying all that was his gratitude and love for her, the knowledge he wasn't facing a life alone with his nightmares.

He looked at her, hard. "I loved her, but I love you, now, and she's in the past."

She hadn't even realized she'd thought it, and she dropped her gaze, a little ashamed.

Logan touched her chin, brought her face back up towards his. "I'm serious, Teva. Much as I grieve for her, I got you now." He kissed her, let that speak for him. "Wouldn't give ya up for anything."

They held each other for a time, neither minding the silence. A knock at the door startled Teva, but Logan had heard the approaching visitors already.

Teva got up and answered it to find Rosie there with the twins, Sara and Cara. "Did you forget about our piano lesson?" the older girl asked.

"Oh, crap," Teva replied, smacking her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Sorry, I got preoccupied." She felt Logan come up behind her and watched the two little girls smile shyly at him.

"Hi, Logan," Rosie said.

"Hey, little bit." The twins were watching him expectantly. "No candy on me this time, girls. I ran out."

They pouted at him but remained silent. Six months later they still weren't speaking out loud, choosing instead to communicate solely through the telepathy both possessed, and even then it was rare to hear them. They kept to themselves and their older sister, along with a few of the staff like Logan and Teva who had both been there to save them from the lab they'd been confined in. It was Teva herself who'd been the first hero they'd seen and as such her bond with them was the strongest..

It had surprised and pleased Teva to find that they both liked and trusted Logan, and as much as he grumbled about them latching on to him, he sneaked them candy and let them watch when he was out in the garage tinkering on his bike or one of the numerous cars. It was an endearing quality, one he'd shown in the past with both Kitty and Jubilee, and his relationship with the older girls (now women) was even stronger today than when they'd first begun. It was odd to think of this man, outwardly so aloof and gruff, as having a big heart and a soft spot for those who needed it.

_~ Keep thinkin' that and I'm gonna have to kick a puppy or somethin' ~_ he groused over the link.

_~ Oh hush yourself. ~_ She closed off the link enough to not hear him, though she could still feel him. "Let me grab my music and I'll be right down, you guys go on ahead," she said to the girls. When they were gone she turned to Logan and smiled. "You ever think of having kids of your own?" she asked as she went to the desk to dig out her sheet music.

He made a noise that made him sound like an angry bear. "Last thing I need to be doin' is bringin' kids into this world, especially since I'd pass on the X gene." He shook his head. "I dunno, thought's crossed my mind, but ..." He let the sentence trail off but she knew what he meant.

"You have'nae found the woman you wanted to think about having kids with." She set the music down and went to him, touching his arm. "I will'nae ask if that's changed because of me. We've got more than enough time to think about that."

Logan's hands slid around her back, one high and one low. "That somethin' you want? Down the road, I mean."

Teva shrugged. "Like I said, we've got time. Unless you're already thinking of getting married, in which case I have no damn clue what to say to that."

"Thought's crossed my mind about that, too, but we'll take it slow." His hands pressed her in against him and her hips involuntarily twitched towards his. "Like to take other things fast, though."

She smirked at him, dipped her head the last inch to kiss him. She still wasn't used to the fact they were almost of a height, but there weren't many men his size and she'd never dated another like him. "We'll have to save that for later, I'm no going to make the girls keep waiting just because you've got the urge to get physical."

"Great, now I'll have that damn song in my head all damn day." He squeezed her butt. "Not even a quickie?"

"Oh hell no." She laughed as she pulled away. "You've one thing on the brain, _mo gille_."

"What can I say? I'm a man."

"And entirely too aware of that fact, I'd wager." She kissed him again, just a quick peck, before gathering her music. "I probably will'nae see you again until dinner, I promised Remy I'd help him get ready for his French class."

That got a growl out of Logan. "You're spendin' a lot of time with the Swamp Rat."

Teva sighed. "If you actually think it's because I'm attracted to him, then you need a lobotomy. He's sweet and we're friends and you can just shove it up your arse."

"Ooh, I love it when ya talk dirty," he teased.

"You're infuriating. I'll see you at dinner. Dinnae hunt down Remy and kill him."

"Spoil sport."

She laughed and left him there, to go teach little girls how to play the piano.

* * *

_mo gille_ - Scottish Gaelic for "my lad"


	2. Chapter 2

_Notes: Just some random French, and Remy's delightfully-hard-to-write accent. And I've futzed with his history a bit because, again, I can't believe some of the crap Marvel comes up with. Bad writers, no cookie._

* * *

"So are you gonna teach the kids how to curse in French?" Teva asked, flipping through a coursebook. There were several more on the table in front of the couch where she was stretched out, barefoot and comfortable.

Remy chuckled as he twirled an unlit clove cigarette in his fingers. "That be the first t'ing _les enfants_ look for, the dirty words. Remy don' t'ink he hafta teach 'em." He reached for another book, setting down the one he'd been looking through.

"Gaelic's great for curses, we Scots have a gift for colorful language."

"Helps if there ain't anyone understands the lot o' ya."

Teva smiled. "Sad, but true." She made a disgusted sound and frowned at her book. "This one sucks, it's mostly _Quebecois_ French."

"Parisian French sounds so much better," Remy agreed. "_La langue de l'amour_, after all."

"I just cannae stand the_ Quebecois_ accent. I had a secondary teacher from Quebec. Too nasal, if that's even possible, I could'nae understand her half the time since my first teacher had a Parisian accent."

"Don' help none they snootier than the Parisians." He pushed her feet off the couch and sat down in their place.

She lifted her feet back up and stuck them in his lap, wiggling her toes at him. "My feet were there first."

He rolled his strange red-on-black eyes at her but left her feet where they were.

"So how you an' the Wolverine doin'?"

Teva glanced up from her perusal of another book. "Good, better than I expected." She tucked her hair behind her ears. "He told me about Mariko today."

Remy nodded solemnly. "Took 'im a long time t' get over that one." He looked at her. "Still loves her, don't he?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "If it'd been me I dinnae ken that I'd be over them, but Logan's only the second real relationship for me. God only knows how long _he's_ been kicking around so I can deal with it if there's still some lingering feelings."

"Ya be more okay wi' that than most _femmes_ be."

She snorted and nudged his ribs with her toes. "I'm so far from the normal woman. You know many frontwomen for world-renowned bands? Retired or otherwise, that is."

He made a non-committal noise and she glanced back down at the book. "Cannae believe what he went through with her, it's like something out of a bad soap opera. Guess the only thing I worry about is if I can compare to her. I saw in his mind how he thinks of her and it's a wee bit intimidating."

Remy flung one arm over the back of the couch and set his book on her shins, still fiddling with his cigarette. "The way we recall those we love usually ain't the same as reality. She likely bigger in his head than she really was."

Teva looked at him beneath her eyelashes. He was right, and she knew Logan hadn't been lying when he'd told her that while he'd loved his Japanese beauty, it was Teva in his life now and that was all that mattered. She herself, though, hadn't had a serious relationship, not for a few years at any rate, and it made her feel like a clueless child compared to Logan's extensive life experiences. Even if he wasn't sure how old he was, he'd already been a full-grown adult by the time he'd gone through Weapon X, and that had been around 1970; Teva had been born in 1982. It amused her some to think she was with a man old enough to be her father.

That was another thing that never ceased to amaze her: Here was a man who'd lived at least three decades more than her, traveled the world, learned close to a dozen languages, done and seen so much, and he'd chosen her. Granted, there'd been some unintentional telepathy on her part to bond them, but even with that he hadn't asked her to break the link, hadn't hated her for it or pushed her away. He'd chosen a woman who, while young, wasn't naïve.

And she'd chosen him, for all he thought he had nothing to offer, no name and no past; more than once she'd caught him thinking of the irony of it, that she had been an international star while he'd spent so long in obscurity because of what he did, what he was. And it didn't matter to her, because she'd been attracted to his intelligence and the wildness in him, his incredible capacity for love that he kept hidden. She loved him because he made her laugh, made her think, made her want to be part of something bigger than herself. She loved him for many reasons and for no reasons at all.

Teva poked him again with her foot. "What about you, Romeo? You got any girls back home?"

It was his turn to drop his eyes down, away from hers. "Jus' the one," he replied softly.

"Bad break up?" she asked sympathetically.

Remy snorted, finally sticking his cigarette behind his ear. He dropped his free hand to wrap around the arch of her foot. "She the reason Remy left Nawlins in the first place, s'pose t' marry Bella Donna." He scowled. "Remy was a t'ief, part o' the Guild. An' Bella, she was Assassins Guild."

"Consolidation of power?" Teva asked.

"_Oui_. 'Cept her _frere_, Julian, he don' like Remy. He wanted a duel, and Remy won."

Teva winced, picking up on the sadness from him, tinged with something a little darker. "I guess that put the kibosh on the happy nuptials." Well, duh, that was kind of an obvious statement. "You miss her?"

He shrugged, that wonderfully graceful Gallic gesture anyone of French descent seemed to be able to do. "A little, a lot, not at all. Bella be ... a passionate woman." His mouth quirked and he turned those eyes to her again. "Sometimes wonder if Remy's charm was what did it, made her fall so hard. Part o' the X gene he got."

She blinked at him. "You mean you can manipulate people?" When he nodded, she cocked her head at him. "Interesting."

"Don' work on telepaths, though, so you be safe."

"Good to know," she said, laughing. "I like you just fine even without it."

"Only 'cause ya don' know me very well." He dropped the third person references. "Logan don' like that ya hang around wit' me."

The way he was acting and the emotions she was getting off of him told him it was more than the worry that the Cajun was going to steal her away that was the problem. "I'm missing some information here, Remy."

He was silent a few moments and back to fiddling with that damn cigarette. She could tell he was reluctant to divulge the secret. "Few years back, I got mixed up wit' _certains hommes de très mauvais,_ got indebted. T' pay 'em back I ended up leadin' a group o' mutants in killin' a bunch o' other mutants, an' when the X-Men found out ... let's just say it not end well."

Teva pulled her feet out of his lap and sat up, kneeling next to him on the couch. "But you're back here now, something must have changed."

"Pity, is what changed. They let me come back but they don' trust me."

She sensed his genuine remorse, the helplessness he'd felt having to make the decisions he had, the price he'd had to pay. "Surely Charles knows you're sorry for what you did. If I can read that off you without even trying then he has to know, too."

Remy smiled without mirth, leaning forward and bracing his arms on his knees. "They all know, but I killed my own kind. Can ya really look at me an' say that don' bother ya?"

She put her hands on his arm, squeezing. "You're sorry for it and that's all that matters to me." She smiled sadly at him. "I lost everything a while back and it made me appreciate what I still had and what I've gotten since then. I've got an amazing man that loves me, a new group of friends, and this crazy Cajun bloke who's rather like the brother I never had."

He smiled again, this time with something approaching happiness. "Ya really mean that, _chere_?"

"_Oui, je veux dire vraiment cela._" Her recall of the language was a little rusty, her accent an odd mix of French and Scots, but the translation was good enough. "Besides, life's too short otherwise. What do you say?" she said, nudging him. "Have you room in your life for a little sister?"

"Can I boss ya around?"

"On occasion." She grinned at him, then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Since your charm does'nae work on me, you know this is real. And that charm is'nae gonna get you out of picking out a frigging French textbook."

Remy groaned. "_Zut_, I hoped maybe you'd forgotten that."

"Well, at least you know your curse words."

* * *

_No offense to Quebec or her citizens intended. Teva's experience was mine in college, where I had an excellent first-year American prof with a perfect Parisian accent. Second year it was Quebecois prof whom I could barely understand._


	3. Chapter 3

The phone was ringing insistently. Logan opened his eyes and then nudged Teva in bed next to him. "You gonna get that?"

She muttered something derogatory in Gaelic before burrowing further under the covers, tucking her head so that all he could see was her hair fanned out over her pillow. He chuckled to himself, leaning across her body to grab the phone on her nightstand.

"Yeah?" he answered quietly.

The connection was full of static and for a moment he thought no one was there, until a voice said, "Logan?"

"Speakin'. Who is this?"

"It's James Hudson. Sorry to call you, I know it's the middle of the night there."

Logan sat up on the edge of the bed, facing away from Teva. "Where the hell are _you_ that it ain't the middle of the night?" Hudson's home base was in Ottawa along with the rest of Department H.

"Classified, unfortunately. Listen, I wanted to give you a heads-up, there's been some things stirring you might want to look into."

He scrubbed a hand across his face, up into his hair. "You're bein' cryptic, Hudson. Spit it the hell out."

A burst of static made him wince before the other man spoke again. "Regarding Weapon X, there's an abandoned facility up in the Rockies. It may have files, I know you've been poking around to see if there was anything to be found."

He'd been doing so discreetly, asked people he trusted to keep an ear or eye out, but so far Hudson was the only one who'd found anything.

"I can hear you thinking over the line," Hudson said.

Logan snorted. "Guess I'm just that loud. Where in the Rockies we talkin'?"

"Up in Kicking Horse Pass, a little ways north of Banff. The place is almost buried under the snow, hard to get to, but it's the only thing I've come across."

"Thanks, man," Logan replied. He could hear Teva stirring behind him. "Anything else?"

"That's it. I'll let you know if I find anything else."

"Alright. Give my love to Heather."

"Will do. Don't do anything stupid, yeah?"

Logan chuckled. "It's me we're talkin' about, bub. Later." He hung up and set the phone down on his bedside table.

"What was that about?" Teva asked sleepily. She had emerged from her cocoon of blankets and was blinking at him, reaching up to brush hair out of her face.

He crawled back in next to her, feeling happy when she burrowed into his side. "Friend of mine, Jimmy Hudson. He let me know he'd found something related to Weapon X up in the Rockies."

Teva lifted her head from where she'd rested it on his shoulder. "What? Seriously?" Her eyes were wide. "Have you no been searching for, like, years?"

"Decades, but yeah." He slid his arm around her to keep her close, not wanting to let go. Now that he knew there was a lead all he could think about was following it, his mind awash in possibilities and the hope beyond reason that maybe he'd finally be able to put some of the pieces of his broken past together.

His memories were fragmented and slippery, sliding away whenever he tried to grab at them to pull them close, and even having Teva poking around in his head didn't make the attempts any easier. She wasn't able to discern which memories were real and which weren't any better than he was. It bothered him some that she'd seen the darkness inside of him, the twisted parts and the half-remembered flashes of blood and chaos and rage, bothered him that she was connected enough to him to know the man he'd been in the past and was capable of being again in the future.

"You're shielding like a sonofabitch." She pointed it out but didn't press the issue, didn't ask him to let her in. She wasn't averse to helping him but she'd always waited until he asked unless it was obvious he needed her, and he was thankful for that.

"Only one of us needs nightmares," he replied, kissing and nuzzling the top of her head. He heard her snort. "Just ... lemme deal with it this time. You can always pull me back if I need it."

She made a displeased sound, turning onto her side so she could drape an arm and leg over his body. "You're a stubborn man, you ken that?"

"This coming from a Scot." He smiled when he said it, then growled when her fingers dug into his ribs to tickle him, but it wasn't angry. He got his fingers under her arm and had her squealing with breathless laughter, trying to scoot away across the bed while she batted his hands away. When he grabbed her hands and held them tightly, forcing them up over her head, the laughter died on a gasp and her body arched up.

"How the bloody hell do ye do that?" she asked, the brogue in her voice stronger, a sound he loved to hear.

He bent his head and nibbled a line up her neck, along her jaw. "Do what?" he asked.

"Make me feel as if I'm going to burst out of my skin." The last word died on a breathy moan as his teeth bit down over her pulse, his sharp canines threatening to pierce her skin before he let up, his tongue darting out to soothe the hurt.

Even in the dark he could clearly see her nipples pressed against her thin cotton tank. "Don't move," he said. When she would have asked why he held up a hand, the middle claw sliding out just a couple inches; he used it to cut down the center of the shirt, pressing just hard enough into her skin that it left a faint pink line without drawing blood before it slid home. He felt her body shudder, smelled the faintest scent of fear beneath her arousal.

He bent his head again, spreading the cloth with his hands to expose her breasts before he took one in his mouth, suckling. His tongue flickered over her nipple as one hand threaded through her hair, the other moving down her belly and then beneath her panties.

"God, baby," he growled out as his fingers slid between her legs where she was slick and hot. He let her drag his face up to hers to kiss him, her tongue demanding entrance that he willingly gave as she moved restlessly against him, urging him on.

She hooked her legs around him to pull him even closer, hands buried in his hair as if she couldn't get enough of him, and he loved the sounds she made, the gasps and the whimpers he dragged out of her. He tried to disengage the kiss and almost had to laugh at the disappointed look on her face.

"Don't worry, I ain't goin' anywhere." He kissed his way back down her neck, between her breasts, across her stomach until he reached the waistband of her underwear. "Right where I wanna be." He hooked his fingers and pulled her panties down, kissing her skin as he exposed it. He rolled his eyes up to look at her, saw the knowledge in hers of what he intended.

He settled himself down between her legs, cupping her ass in his hands as he lowered his mouth to her. She made a squeaking noise when he licked at her, along the outside of her lips that were now swollen with arousal, begging to be touched. She giggled and jerked when his sideburns tickled her skin but didn't push him away, her hips lifting of their own volition to get closer to him.

Soon he had her begging, pleading, murmuring in Gaelic that he got the gist of even if he didn't quite understand the literal translation. He'd heard the words often enough when he had her like this, knew by her sounds when she teetered at the edge of orgasm so that he could hold her there, dangling.

Teva cursed at him when he stopped. "On yer knees," he directed, pleased when she scrambled to get into position. He grabbed her ruined shirt from the back and got it off of her, revealing the pale expanse of her back and the tattoo she'd recently gotten of a music staff, black lines moving halfway down her spine with a treble clef and the beginning notes of the first song she'd ever written. He'd been with her when she'd gotten it, held her hand and talked to her to keep her mind off the pain. The whole process had been rather fascinating for a man who couldn't get one.

He dragged his hand down her back and felt her shudder, gooseflesh breaking out in the wake of his touch. She pushed her hips back into him eagerly. "Lift your ass a little, baby ... ah!" He slid into her, felt her spasm around him and loved the pained sound she always made when he began stretching her, forcing his way in.

She turned her head to watch him over her shoulder, and when he'd worked his way in her head dropped, a low, ragged moan spilling from her lips. He pulled out and pushed back in once, twice, and then the rhythm was set. He rode her hard, flesh striking flesh as his powerful muscles worked to drive her over into orgasm. She came with a strangled cry, her body bucking back into his.

"Harder, dammit!" she growled out, voice lower as if coming from deeper in her throat. "Dinnae hold back."

Every time she said that it made him a little insane, unlocked something he'd rather keep inside but, once she'd discovered it, she wanted it. She wanted everything from him, and this was part of it. He released his hold on his animal, let it out so that he was pounding her body into the mattress, hands bruising her hips where he held her in place, the end of him hitting the end of her so that she whimpered with each thrust in.

She came again from the force of it, squeezing his cock so that it was hard to move, both from how tight she'd gotten and from the erratic twitching of her body. He felt his own orgasm approaching and bent over her as it hit him, latching onto the back of her neck with his teeth. She cried out and bucked back into him again, almost mewling as he held himself motionless and filled her.

Teva collapsed face-down onto the bed when he let her go, her breath coming hard and fast. He lay down next to her on his side, watching her. He didn't speak for a long moment while the beast curled back into its cave to hibernate.

"Ya okay?" he asked finally. "I didn't hurt ya?"

"Mmmmm." She opened her eyes and he saw the lazy, happy satiation there. "Not in a way I'd protest against." She twitched periodically from the aftershocks of her orgasm. "I'll let ye ken if I cannae handle it."

She leaned in against him finally, head raised so that she could look at him. "Ye're no going up to Canada alone, so dinnae ye dare think I'm staying behind."

He'd been thinking just that. "I'm just goin' to see what's there, Tev. Ain't a mission."

"And if it were I'd expect ye to have the team with ye." She pulled away, got up to find her underwear and get a new shirt. "When are ye going to accept that I'm no going anywhere? That I'm in this for the long haul, whatever that means?"

She was angry now, her movements jerky as she slammed drawers in her search. It was a good thing the room was soundproofed, the banging loud enough to make him wince with each one.

"Because some things I just gotta do on my own." He knew it was the wrong thing to say, for both of them. He wasn't completely used to having her yet, used to including her, which was stupid and he knew it; she'd seen the ugly things in his head and she hadn't run screaming yet, hadn't shunned him and called him a monster. The fact remained he'd been a loner for so long even if he'd been on a team for this many years. He was used to taking off when he needed to, to take care of personal business. Of all the X-Men he was the one who had the least amount invested in his teammates (or at least that's what he'd admit to).

He'd also never had a steady relationship with a woman who lived in the same place as him, let alone shared a room with him. Mariko had been half a world away and she'd been the only one who mattered.

But Teva wasn't M'iko. The redhaired Scot sharing his bed and holding his heart was a lot more volatile and a hell of a lot more stubborn. She wasn't going to back down or demurely defer to him, or accept it if he pushed her away as was his habit.

She stood with her butt against the dresser, clothed once more in underwear and a tanktop with faded lettering across the chest. "I can damn near hear ye thinking even without the link. If ye're going to shut me out, tell me now so I can still walk away without too much pain." That was a blatant lie and they both knew it; she'd given herself over body and soul, too much to break away easily. And she'd forever hold it against him.

"C'mere." She hesitated and he got up, went to her and gripped her arms. "Been on my own a long time, girl, and I'm set in my ways. Means I'm a foolish asshole sometimes."

There were tears in her eyes that she wiped away angrily. "I could'nae just sit here while ye're gone, Logan. It's no like I'd be in the way, I'm no an idiot who cannae take care of herself and I may even see or pick up on things ye would'nae."

He opened his mouth to ask what that meant and she cut him off by touching his lips with her fingers.

"Something Charles and I discovered. I can take psychic ... impressions, you could call them, from objects and places. I can read the emotions and thoughts that are attached to them."

"Were ya doin' that in the closet the other day?" He wasn't sure if that would bother him or not.

Teva shook her head. "No, I was shielding in there so I would'nae be overwhelmed. Now that it's unlocked I had to build an entirely new and different shield so I dinnae pick up on anything I dinnae want to."

Logan leaned in towards her and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry, I'm a stubborn bastard."

She called him something unfavorable in Gaelic. He deserved it.

"Come with me."

"No afraid I'll see something ye dinnae want me to?" She still wasn't happy, still felt the hurt from before.

He tapped a finger against his temple. "Seen anything in here makes ya think twice?" When she shook her head he gathered her into his arms. "Might be I need ya more than I'm comfortable sayin'. More than I realize sometimes." It was a confession of epic proportions for him.

Finally she relaxed against him, the tension melting out of her as she wrapped her arms around him. "I'm no going anywhere, no going to run just because things get hard. Been through enough, maybe not as much as you, but enough."

"More 'n most people your age, at any rate." He touched her chin, cupped her face in his hand and rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone. "I love ya, darlin'."

She moved the last couple inches and kissed him, her fingers sliding into his hair as she molded herself against him. He let her control it and found he didn't mind that, didn't mind how gentle she was being; not too long ago he'd told her he didn't have it in him to be gentle but he'd found that part of him was still there, he'd just buried it so far inside it hadn't seen the light of day since ...

"Ye really need to stop going there," she said, breaking the kiss. "Besides, if I'm kissing ye and ye ain't thinking o' me, I'm doing something seriously wrong." There was no anger in her voice, only mild amusement and, beneath that, understanding. "Let's go back to bed, Wolverine."

He grunted as he let her lead him. "Ya never called me that before."

Teva shrugged as she crawled across the sheets, pulling him after her. "No since the first time I saw your tags, no. It's no your name."

"Not sure if Logan is, either, but it's the only one I got." He settled down on his back and she snuggled up to him, head resting on his shoulder. It was her favorite way to fall asleep, he knew.

"That's what we'll find out, when we go." She was already making sleepy sounds, relaxed and happy; she radiated it along the link and he found it made him sleepy, too.

As the edges of sleep pulled him under, he heard her murmur, "I love ye, too, _mo chride_."

* * *

_mo chride_ - 'my heart' in Gaelic


	4. Chapter 4

They'd flown into Calgary International Airport, and Teva was rather glad that Logan had dozed through the flight with a small empathic suggestion of calm; he was epically uncomfortable flying and she'd much rather deal with his jumbled dreams than the constant repetition in his head of _"I will not puke"_ running like a mantra. His hatred of traveling by air bordered on phobic.

"If we were meant to fly, God woulda given us wings," he'd growled at her when she called him on it, and she kept the _"or given us the mutation to fly"_ retort to herself. He ignored her protestation that air travel was statistically safer than driving.

In Calgary they'd rented a truck and a camper, the latter of which boasted a queen size bed, a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom with shower. Not knowing how long it would take to find the complex or how long they'd be there, it had seemed a safer bet than getting a hotel room in the city. Teva let him drive to keep his mind off of how queasy he still felt.

The first night they didn't make much headway. Kicking Horse Pass, though modernized with a highway, was still difficult to traverse in the middle of the winter, and they'd spent many fruitless hours tramping through the snow once they'd found a place to park. She didn't mind the grueling pace he set, was suddenly grateful she'd taken up a daily morning run with Ororo and regular practice in the Danger Room that used her new skills in kickboxing, because she was using her newfound endurance.

Logan moved tirelessly, a man on a mission, and Teva rather enjoyed watching him in what was very much his element. He'd apparently spent some time up this way in the past, though not in the area the hidden complex was in or they'd have found it by now. She could feel his frustration that he'd been so close to potential clues to his past without having known.

Neither one slept deeply that night, Logan because his mind wouldn't quiet down and Teva because she could hear him physically and mentally struggling. The one dream he had was vividly violent enough he got up to avoid unintentionally popping his claws and hurting her, and by dawn they were both wide awake. After a quick, cold breakfast they drove a little further north than yesterday to a spot he thought would be the right one.

It was Teva who found it first, using both the tracking skills Logan had been teaching her and her ability to sense psychic impressions: she'd begun to feel a little sick to her stomach and got flashes of fear and helplessness, catch glimpses of violence and blood splashed across footprints in white snow. She damn near tripped over the entrance to the bunker, her feet sliding in the snow despite the heavy treads on her combat boots.

She'd lost sight of Logan but knew he was nearby. _~Over here~_ she sent over the link. _~This is it, I can feel it.~_

Logan emerged from a nearby stand of trees and she was frozen for a moment, struck by how natural he looked in this environment, like he belonged here. The look in his eyes was distant but when he saw her his mouth quirked a little. _~I'm still here~_ he thought. _~I could lose myself out here, I think.~_

That didn't bother her. He might get lost but she'd always find him.

She crouched by the spot she'd found and brushed snow off to reveal doors both chained and padlocked shut. "With you we never need lockpicks," she joked.

He crouched beside her, the claws on his right hand extending and easily cutting through chains that, strangely, weren't rusted. The doors proved a little more difficult, even for a man as strong as Logan. They groaned opened to reveal steps going down into a yawning black abyss.

He didn't need a flashlight as he went down and she followed, seeing what he did through their link so that she could move as inerrantly as him. It was a strange yet exhilarating feeling to be able to see this way, to feel what he used without thought.

She found a bank of switches and tried them. Lights flickered on across the ceiling heading either direction, about half of them still functioning to varying degrees. "Any of this familiar to you?" she asked as she looked around. The corridor they stood in was bare, everything concrete as far as she could see, though in places were curious stains that looked very much like old blood. She shuddered and moved closer to him.

"Not so far," he answered. "Might be better to split up, you're armed, right?"

Teva unzipped her leather coat to reveal two 9mm Glocks, each one in a shoulder holster under either arm. "Like I'd be out here otherwise," she scoffed. "I'll keep the link open."

He nodded and quickly stalked down the hall and out of sight to the left.

She shook her head musingly and went down the corridor more slowly, cautiously putting a hand out to touch the wall beside her and recoiling immediately when screams filled her head; actually touching something like that made the impressions worse, whereas if she didn't touch anything she could at least shield herself. She closed her eyes, shuddered, and moved on, taking the right wing of the fork at a T-junction whereas Logan had taken the left.

Rooms spread out on either side of her as far as she could see, full of desks and filing cabinets that had been ripped open, the contents spilled out haphazardly across the floor; she stepped into one room and knelt to shuffle through the papers, eyes scanning quickly over military jargon she didn't really understand. She didn't get the feeling anything here was of importance so she moved on, back into the corridor.

The complex was vast, as she soon discovered, letting her impressions of the place guide her down hallways with lights that flickered uncertainly at times as if they weren't sure they wanted to stay on. Logan was a constant presence in the back of her mind and she occasionally took a peek at what he saw, which was just more of what she could see.

_~Are you getting anything?~_ she asked.

The answer was slow to come back as if he had to think harder to form the words, and she could feel that he'd begun to focus more with his senses instead of his brain. _~This place don't feel right, but I ain't found anything yet.~_

She shivered as if he'd whispered the words right next to her ear as he did sometimes. A glance at the floor showed her a trail of blood that she didn't really want to follow except it might lead her to something important. The sheer amount of the substance long-since dried on most surfaces would have made her wonder just what the hell had gone on here had she not been privy to Logan's memories. She'd yet to come across anything other than administrative details but there was no other explanation for what this place was.

Finally, frustrated, she placed a hand on the wall and pushed out with her mutant abilities, trying to avoid the emotional imprint while she got a better picture of what the place looked like. She held on for only moments, long enough to wish she hadn't done it even though she now felt a pull from a nearby room. She wiped her hands across her jeans as if that would get rid of the phantom touch of something warm and sticky coating her skin.

Teva let her telepathy guide her down another hall, into another room much like the ones she'd already passed. With the power restored a lone computer monitor lit the small space, and from the look of it, it had been there a decade or more, she hadn't seen this kind of computer since she'd been in secondary. She righted an overturned chair and pulled it to the desk the computer sat on.

There were only a few icons on the desktop. She reached for the mouse and guided the cursor to one marked "Case Files." It opened to reveal more folders and she zeroed in on one named "Weapon Plus." A box for a password popped up and she cursed under her breath before she remembered the small gadget Kitty had pressed into her hand before they'd left, explaining it would decrypt as well as download anything they were able to find.

Kitty being a computer genius, Teva trusted her. She pulled the tiny black box out of her jacket pocket along with an adapter; she knew enough about computers to know that there was no way this thing had a USB port, and she had to turn the tower around to find a serial port that would fit the box's adapter. A red light blinked on as it went to work, trying thousands of options in a matter of moments, then the light blinked green and the folder opened.

"Gods, more folders," she muttered, each one marked with a Roman numeral all the way up to twenty that gave her the sinking suspicion that Logan wasn't just Weapon X, he was Weapon _Ten_, in a long line of experiments. She swallowed bile and opened the folder.

So much information flashed across the screen she would have had a seizure were she epileptic. Pictures, X-rays, medical files, military reports ...

_~Logan, I think I've hit the mother lode.~_ When he didn't respond after a few seconds she realized he'd closed their link from his end , something she didn't know he could do. She pushed against it. _~Logan, what's going on?~_

Instead of responding verbally he let her see through his eyes, and what she saw was definitely not what she'd expected: A huge man, probably close to seven feet tall from Logan's perspective, stood in front of him. Long, disheveled blond hair hung in a predatory face, lips pulled back in a snarl that revealed canines sharper even than Logan's, and he had hands tipped in wicked claws.

Cursing more loudly, she shut the link down enough so he wouldn't be distracted by her, then pressed the button on the small black box Kitty had told her would start a download. "C'mon, c'mon," she said, her leg bouncing impatiently until the damn thing beeped to signal completion. She disconnected it and stuck it back in her pocket, pulling out a gun in its place and checking the clip to make sure it was full before she broke into a run, trusting blind instinct and her powers to show her where to go. She went past the entrance they'd come into and was hit with a wave of intense rage that felt very much like Logan's but wasn't his, and she followed that all the way in a twisting path that brought her closer to the sounds of two men speaking in low, growling tones.

"Nice of ya to join us," the stranger said, not looking at her as she entered the room. She took quick stock of the area in shambles, various strange equipment torn to pieces where it wasn't scorch-marked, and if she wasn't mistaken she could see claw marks on the walls, interspersed with dings from bullets and other signs of violence she didn't recognize based on sight alone.

"I already asked ya what ya were doin' here, Vic." Logan's voice was almost unintelligible, a bass deep enough it almost hurt Teva's ears to hear it. His hands were in fists but his claws hadn't emerged yet for all he held himself ready to attack.

"Same reason you are, runt. Heard this place was still here, wanted t' find some answers. Ya ain't the only one with swiss cheese fer a brain." He finally turned disturbing amber eyes to Teva. She'd thought she'd seen what a man looked like when he was more animal than human, but she'd been wrong. Where the man she loved still retained much of his humanity, only occasionally giving control to the beast inside of him, the creature looming over them both had given himself joyfully to his most basic instincts. Her hands rose of their own volition, her finger twitching off the Glock's safety before resting against but not inside the trigger guard.

He snarled a laugh at her. "Whatever caliber ya got in there ain't gonna be but a bee-sting, frail." His attention swung back to Logan. "Didn't know ya had a new girlfriend, Logan, or I'da stopped by fer a visit. Ya told her what I done t' yer other women?"

Teva glanced at her lover, picked the thought out of his head: The animal in the room with them had brutally murdered a woman Logan had once loved, a very long time ago, but under the burning pain of that was the frustration that he had memories of it happening more than once, and he didn't know when any of the murders had occurred. The only things he was sure of were after the adamantium bonding process, and even those memories were sometimes fuzzy.

She looked back at Vic – _Victor Creed, Sabretooth,_ the thought came – and smiled grimly. "He did," she lied, "and I also ken those women were'nae able to put up much of a fight. I will'nae go down so easily, and that's if there's anything left of you after he's done with you."

"Ooh, I like this one." Creed's smile was cruel, mocking. "She's got fire in 'er."

She felt a flicker of annoyance from Logan, heard him think _~Thanks for the confidence but I don't need it.~_ He spoke out loud then. "Let it go, Vic. We're here for the same reason, t' find answers we ain't got."

Creed shrugged massive shoulders and drew himself out of his crouch to his full height. "Until that gets boring, fine."

Teva stepped closer to Logan, thumbing the safety back on but not taking her eyes off Creed. _~I found files back where I was, I downloaded them.~_ She hesitated a moment before adding _~Pretty much everything you're looking for, as far as I could see, but there may be more.~_

Logan nodded. "There're some computer banks this way," he said, jerking his thumb in indication. "Place seems to be laid out same as the place I was in, far as I can remember. S'why I came this way."

She was a little surprised he wasn't asking what she'd found, especially since she could feel the sense of curiosity and the desire to know. He just wanted to make sure they hadn't overlooked anything.

Creed had gone the direction Logan indicated. "Place is on a back-up generator but it won't last long. I think I can remember how to access the files from here."

Teva looked at him in surprise and got an amused look in return.

"I know a lot about computers, frail. Logan and I both do, got some trainin' from the government." He tapped one long, taloned finger against his temple. "Smarter than I look."

"Must be really fucking smart, then." No one would ever accuse Teva of knowing when to shut her mouth, but instead of being angry he just chuckled like he was enjoying himself immensely.

She followed Logan without putting her weapon away, eyes scanning the room like she was trying to commit it to memory, and she kept coming back to Creed. He moved with the same deadly attentiveness Logan did, smooth and agile but with an edge of wariness like he expected an attack at any moment, for all he was huge. He'd chosen a console and begun tapping at its interface, but he turned his head and looked at her.

"Yer girl can't keep her eyes off me," he said with a low chuckle.

Logan was behind him at another computer, his fingers moving quickly. "She ain't ever seen a gorilla outta the zoo." His eyes rose to meet hers and he smirked.

_~Thought you did'nae want me to provoke him.~_

He shrugged._ ~Different if I do it. Me and Vic – we go way back. Used t' work together.~_

_~Great, it's a lovely reunion.~ She_ let her hand, the one holding the Glock, dangle at her side as she leaned up against the console he was working on. She didn't like being in a room with two unpredictable ferals who obviously had an antagonistic history, no matter how civil they were being. She reached out with her telempathy and felt her stomach damn near bottom out when Creed's head snapped around again to stare at her.

"What is it with you and telepathic redheads, runt?"

"Leave 'im alone, Tev." Logan went back to concentrating on the computer in front of him, eyes scanning what came up on the screen. "Shit's encoded."

"Here." Creed tossed him a small object, a gadget not unlike the one Teva had in her pocket. "Decrypter. Just set it on top o' the console and it'll interface."

Teva wasn't sure she wanted to know where the hell he'd gotten the piece of equipment, especially since many of the things Xavier's people had access to were state-of-the-art.

Logan did as instructed and, as advertised, the small machine went to work. He surprised Teva by reaching for her hand and giving her fingers a squeeze, and as she turned her head to look at him again he made a choked sort of noise, his grip on her tightening almost painfully. Rage and pain slammed into her, made her blink and try to choke it down because it wasn't hers, it was Logan's and she didn't know quite what had set it off.

"What –-" she started to ask, her question cut off as something wrapped tight around her throat and she was yanked off of her feet. Her gun fell from her fingers as she brought her hands up to pry herself free and found herself staring into feral amber eyes, her own eyes having trouble focusing with Logan's anger.

Creed was grinning. "Yer lover there triggered a failsafe designed special just fer him, in case he ever got too close t' the truth." He laughed at her attempts to speak and tightened his fingers around her neck. "Lucky I got ya or he'd probably rip ya t' pieces and, babe, let me tell ya how much I appreciate the irony o' that."

Teva's vision was starting to spark at the edges, the proverbial stars in her eyes as her brain started to starve for oxygen. She thought about going for her other gun but knew he'd likely stop her before she did, so she brought her steel-toed boot up between his legs. The purely physical action made something in her want to crow even as she thought quite clearly about clawing his eyes out and watching the blood and other fluids drip down his face. It was a terrifying thought and, again, not quite her own.

The roar of pain he gave was disproportionate to the force behind her kick. After she'd hit the floor and took several gasping, painful breaths, she found Logan crouched over Creed, claws buried completely in the bigger man's chest. She scrambled to grab and aim the gun she'd dropped, though she couldn't take a shot without risking injuring Logan.

Creed's own claws sunk into Logan's shoulders and he pushed the smaller man off of him with enough force that the Wolverine landed a handful of yards away. They collided again with the force of super strength, blood flying with the blows they rained on each other, both men grunting and growling in pain and triumph.

When Sabretooth went down for a few moments, Teva reached out for Logan's mind and found nothing but red fury, matching what was pouring down the link from him to her. There was no man inside, his eyes now less human than his opponent's, the sounds coming from him not even close to sane. He turned those predator's eyes on hers and she found herself bringing her gun to bear out of sheer instinct. Sabretooth was up and moving before she had to make the choice, though, and the two men tumbled out of sight.

Panic was starting to creep in under the adrenaline, under the rage that made her vision seem red, tinted the color of blood. She did not want to be stuck with the winner of this fight no matter who it was because she wasn't sure she was going to survive it. No matter who emerged victorious, she was going to have her own battle to fight against someone much stronger.

A howl of pain and rage, cut abruptly short, nearly shook the room around her and she staggered to her feet, afraid to round the corner, not sure what she'd find.

Logan was face down in a spreading pool of blood. He wasn't moving, not even twitching in a death throe, and the rage she'd gotten from him lingered but was lesser now, not so mind-numbing. His utter stillness made her want to reach out until she realized she couldn't see Sabretooth.

Teva whipped around at the last second to find him in mid-leap at her. She raised her gun and fired into his midsection, emptying the clip in the space of time it took for him to close on her. The tackle sent her flying back into rubble, her gun lost for a second time. She curled into a ball with her arms over her head to prevent concussion, but having Sabretooth crouched over her when they came to a halt wasn't a better alternative.

"Just you an' me now, frail." He straddled her legs, all 500-some-odd pounds keeping her pinned. "Never had a chance t' actually have one o' his women before," he said, one huge hand grabbing her ponytail and wrenching her head up so she couldn't look away from him. "An' I know you'll fight back, ya wouldn't just lay there an' take it."

As he sat there and calmly talked about raping her, she was gathering her power. Only once before had she used her telepathy as a weapon, it wasn't something she'd actively developed beyond using it as a defensive measure, and she'd certainly never hoped that it'd be enough to kill someone, but never had she so clearly been staring death in the face. She'd be damned if she was going to even let him get started. He'd already shown the ability to know when telepathy was being used on him so she struck quickly, almost faster than the thought required.

Sabretooth blinked and for a moment she thought she'd failed as a growl trickled out between those deadly fangs. He wasn't moving, though. When she reached for her second gun and he still didn't move she sent a mental suggestion for him to stand. He got jerkily to his feet and she scrambled out from beneath him, gun pointed at him.

"Can't – hold me – f'rever," he said, words clipped between clenched teeth. "C'n – feel ya – gettin' weak."

It was true, she was having a difficult time maintaining her hold on him, like clenching a fist for too long. She could feel him regaining control but at least it had bought her time to get away, to check on Logan. She knelt beside him and automatically felt for the pulse in his neck, having to search a bit when her fingers slid against the blood on him; she could have wept when she felt his pulse there beneath her fingers, so weak it was almost unnoticeable. His healing factor must have been in overdrive to repair what seemed to be a neck wound, based on the amount of blood that had left his body, and she was almost positive that if she could buy him time, he'd survive this.

Physically, at least. Mentally ... she couldn't even hazard a guess. She could feel the chaos inside his mind, the completely feral rage that still clouded her vision and made her think of doing things to Creed that would have never otherwise occurred to her.

"Time's up." Sabretooth shook himself like a cat settling its fur as the last bits of her control faded.

Teva raised her gun and fired at him, clicking finally on empty as she watched him stalk toward her.

"Got adamantium an' a healin' factor, just like him."

She popped the clip and slid a new one in, raising the barrel just as he leapt at her and knocked her down again, though this time she kept her grip on the weapon. She landed up against a console so that she was sitting with her back against it.

"Ya smell like fear," he said, sniffing just above her face. His hand gripped her left thigh and she felt the small _pop-pop-pop_ of his claws piercing the fabric of her jeans. "C'mon, frail, struggle a little."

"What's the point? You'll kill me quicker if I dinnae." She drew on what she'd gleaned of meditation from Logan, tried to use that to calm the spinning anger inside of her, the desire to lash out with a body that was not a weapon. She was fragile and the man kneeling in front of her wasn't.

His chuckle was so like the one Logan gave her in intimate situations, one given by a man who knew he had a woman right where he wanted her, but now it made her shudder in disgust. He leaned in to put his mouth beside her ear, his breath warm where it tickled against her skin. "Logan ever done this with ya?" he asked as his claws pierced her skin. "Ever drawn blood? Animals like us, we need it, or we get bored."

She didn't want to struggle, didn't want to fight back because that's what he wanted, and because it felt like a disturbing parody of her sexual life with Logan. More than once he'd gotten her pinned, whispered dangerous things into her ear because he liked her fear and she didn't mind the game, she knew he wouldn't really hurt her. He'd made her bleed before from bites and once or twice with his claws but only when she'd begged him to let go, begged him to take what he wanted, and she'd taken the pain because she enjoyed it. The only reason he had no scars from their lovemaking was because he healed; without that he'd be marked up all along his back and thighs by now from her nails.

The claws at her leg dug in further, drawing a pained gasp from her. "Bet ya make that sound for him," Creed said. "Make it again." He dug in harder and she cried out, couldn't scramble back away from him with the wall behind her. Tears caught in her eyelashes and as one fell he leaned forward and licked it off her cheek. His tongue was rough like a cat's against her skin, against her lips then as he forced a kiss on her at the same moment he pressed his claws in more and then dragged them down, opening furrows on her leg.

With his mouth against hers she brought her gun up and jammed it in under his chin. Before he had time to make a sound or otherwise react she pulled the trigger several times in quick succession and felt him jerk against her.

"Adamantium's only on the outside," she said as he slumped back and away, eyes rolling white. "See how ye do with some bullets rattling around in your skull." Very, very distantly, she was aware of the fact she'd just done something she'd never thought herself capable of.

Teva tried to get up and fell onto her hands and knees, retching as a wave of pain spread up from her leg; her meager breakfast made a reappearance and then she was dry heaving. She swayed for a moment before she pushed herself up, tried to shut the pain out. She needed to get to Logan, make sure he was okay.

She crawled to him and this time she did weep when she found him breathing, his pulse stronger. The belated thought that she needed to call for help brought her up short and she reached into an inner pocket of her jacket, pulling out a satellite phone. "Thank the gods," she breathed out shakily when she saw it had a signal; she hadn't expected one this far underground, but it was a powerful piece of equipment and likely there was some kind of receiver working inside the facility for just such a thing.

Scott answered and she explained the situation quickly, feeling herself losing a battle against unconsciousness. She hadn't realized it before but Logan was pulling on her, using her to keep his mind from fragmenting. She heard Scott telling her they were prepping the Blackbird and would be there, they had a lock on her signal. His voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away.

She blinked when the phone dropped from her fingers as if it weighed a ton. She looked at Logan, heard a clear, precise thought from him out of the chaos of the rest:

_I remember everything._

The last thing she remembered was slumping down until her head was cradled against his lower back, her eyes sliding closed as blood loss and mental fatigue finally caught up with her.


	5. Chapter 5

_Remembering just one thing from his past would have been difficult enough to handle; having decades upon decades of memories come slamming down into his mind was like being caught in a hurricane with nothing to hold onto. He tried to reach out and grab something, anything, partly so he could actually look at it and partly to stop the maelstrom from dragging him under. He was aware of the presence of another that was anchoring him but when she spoke to him he couldn't understand her, though he took comfort from her. She was the only thing that didn't hurt him._

_It was difficult even with her to keep him afloat and, in a wash of blood and screams of terror, he was jerked under the surface._

* * *

Teva woke up to the scent of fabric softener and the touch of a rough tongue licking her chin. It was so much like what Creed had done to her that she screamed and flailed before she realized it was just Gaia, the barn cat. The big grey queen grumbled at her but was otherwise undeterred, circling several times widdershins on Teva's chest before settling her big, pregnant self down.

Hank bustled over making clucking noises to shoo the cat away. Gaia gave him lambent green eyes and a look that clearly said _What's your problem?_

"Leave 'er," Teva said, finding it hard to form words through an aching throat, wondering why it sounded like she was growling. Everything felt heavy and yet somehow light, like she was floating but she could barely lift her limbs without major effort.

The furry blue doctor made his own rumbling noise as he began checking her vitals. "There is scientific evidence for the healing properties of a cat's purr." He took her hand in one massive paw, turning her wrist so that he could take her pulse. "In fact, it seems they do it to comfort themselves. Cats sometimes even purr when they are in great pain or the process of dying."

Teva huffed out a breath, almost a laugh. "Y'r morbid, Doc." She shivered when he slid the cold end of a stethoscope beneath her top. She'd been changed into soft, dark clothing at some point. "How long I been out?"

"Two days, though that's not including the time between when you called and when we found you." He was humming something vaguely classical under his breath while he listened to her lungs. "Three days, then, assuming you were unconscious the entire time before we arrived."

That wasn't too much of a leap. "Logan?" He wasn't in the medbay, at least not that she could see, but she knew he was close by.

Hank didn't respond for a long moment while he recorded her vitals on a clipboard, which he then hung on the end of her bed. "Physically, our resident Canuck is hale as ever, he was completely healed by the time we located you.

"Psychically, however ... Even Charles doesn't know. Logan's peculiar resistance to telepathy and other psionic powers means the Professor has been unable to discern exactly what is keeping the Wolverine unconscious."

She could tell he wanted to ask if she knew any differently but was respectful and tactful enough to leave it up to her. She dug her fingers into Gaia's fur, let the purring beast soothe unseen hurts.

"We triggered some kind of failsafe, it ... I think it overloaded his mind. Before I passed out I heard his thoughts, he said 'I remember everything'."

He looked at her sharply. "You are positive?" he asked.

"Of course I fucking am!" The outburst made both her and Hank blink. "I'm sorry. My link with him is still intact and I feel like I'm channeling him. But even if he had'nae said that ..." Teva trailed off as the dull pain in her leg became steadily stronger, more difficult to ignore. Her breath came a little harder, a little shorter. "Just before I woke up I lost my grip on him, he got dragged down into some bloody nightmare, some awful memory."

She closed her eyes, could still see most of the things in Logan's mind. "I had a download of files, did ye find it?"

Hank nodded as he readied a syringe of some clear liquid. "Kitty found it but hasn't looked at the contents of the drive. She thought it best to wait until one of you was conscious again so we had a better idea what was going on."

"What is 'at?" she asked as he brought the syringe to a port on the IV she'd discovered in her left wrist.

"For the pain, my dear."

Whatever it was started kicking in quickly, eating at the edges of consciousness. She had the demented image of Hungry Hungry Hippos and giggled, the sound a bit unhinged. "Hank, I'm afraid he's gonna pull me under with 'im." It choked her to say it, to think it; she didn't want to leave Logan to fight alone, but she was almost positive that if she got stuck, no one would be able to pull either of them out.

The doctor smoothed a hand over her forehead and then her hair. "Charles is monitoring you, Teva. He'll make sure you don't drown."

She heard Gaia chirrup, then a stronger purring that wasn't coming from the cat on her chest. "Ye purrin', Doc?"

Hank smiled at her. "Offering what comfort I can. I'll be here when you wake."

The last thought on her mind was that she hadn't even asked if her leg was okay.

* * *

Waking up the second time was very much like swimming up from the bottom of the ocean. Her limbs still felt impossibly heavy and she felt smothered and scared, thrashing a bit until pain brought her back, blinking against dim lights. A hand on hers tightened and she reflexively squeezed back, finding Rosie there when her eyes adjusted.

"I was worried about you," the young girl blurted out, relief bringing color into a face pale with fear.

Another presence in the room caught Teva's pain- and morphine-clouded awareness. Charles Xavier rolled into her field of vision. "It is good to see you awake," he said, his cultured voice along with his mind projecting calm.

Teva blinked rapidly, swallowing and finding her throat painfully dry. As if sensing the need Rosie reached for a pitcher of water and a cup,filling and handing the cup to her. She nodded her thanks and took a small sip through a bendy straw, unable otherwise to sit up completely though the head of her bed was angled slightly.

"Thank ye," she finally said when she found her voice. It sounded weak and distant even to herself, as if coming from very far away, and maybe that wasn't such a bad description. Even with what she assumed was Charles' aid in keeping her mind from being overwhelmed by Logan's, she could feel the pull, the strain, and it took everything she had not to just let it overwhelm her. The thought that her mate was alone (she still didn't know where he was, dammit) made her breath come faster in panic.

"Shhh." Rosie touched her head, comforting Teva the way the girl had been comforted in the past by the woman. "He's okay, I just came from seeing him. Hank just has him in a private room." The girl gestured towards a half-open door just to the left. "He hasn't woken up yet," she added in response to an unspoken question.

Charles powered his wheelchair closer to Teva's bedside. "Hank told me what you told him. The idea that Logan's memories had returned wasn't even a possibility in my mind though it does explain his current mental state." He touched her hand, then her head, mirroring Rosie on the other side. "Through you I can see what he is enduring and it is frightening."

Tears spilled down Teva's face. "He's using me as an anchor. Charles, what if he does'nae wake up? What if he does'nae survive this?" Under other circumstances he could remain this way indefinitely, his amazing healing factor sustaining him, but she knew his psyche was being torn apart from the inside, just as she was the only thing keeping him alive. It was a difficult burden to bear no matter how much she wanted to help him.

"It will not come to that," Charles assured her. "I believe that if I were to anchor you the way you are doing for him, you can aid him in working through the memories, help him shore up his mind enough to return to us. Only if you are willing and capable, of course."

It wasn't even a question. She found herself nodding because she felt Logan's rage again, coloring everything she heard, thought, and saw. "Anything, Charles, anything."

The far door slid open and Remy entered, heading straight for her so that he stood next to Rosie. _"Je suis désolé, petite sœur," _he said softly, holding one long-fingered hand out to her. She reached for it, let his touch comfort her. "Had some business t' attend to."

He nodded when Rosie switched places with him so that he could stand closer. "How ya be, _chere_? 'Side from havin' the Wolverine keepin' ya all t' himself."

It made her smile, his attempt at levity. It made the panic ease a little, made the fear of what Charles had proposed seem a bit less large and terrifying. "I feel like I got hit with a Mack truck," she replied. "Goes by the name of Sabretooth."

She heard the displeased sound Charles made. "I'm not sure what you did to him, Teva, but he was still unconscious when Scott and the team found you."

"I hit him with my telepathy. Then I shot him a few times in the head." There was no remorse in her for it, she'd seen what kind of person he was, if he could even be called a 'person' in the first place. "I hope ye left him there." Her voice was quiet but strong now.

Remy chuckled softly. "He woke up when we got there, didn' seem too sure what was goin' on, and then he took off." He shrugged. "Didn' seem important t' make sure he be okay, _non_?"

"I would have at least liked to have offered him the chance to recover somewhere safe," Charles said.

Teva couldn't stop the cold look that came into her eyes, gaining the utter stillness that she knew Logan got sometimes when he was thinking something dark and particularly ugly. She saw that Charles recognized it and had hoped never to see that on anyone else's face. "Ye dinnae fucking get it, do ye, Charles? Creed is an animal, the bullets in his skull were an improvement. I ken that does'nae fit your view of the world, where everyone can be rehabilitated, but you were'nae the one pinned to the floor hoping he'd kill ye quick after raping ye." She couldn't stop herself from glaring at him, baring her teeth in a snarl. "I did the fucking world a favor and ye'd damned well come to grips with that."

"Teva, I believe you are channeling Logan's rage."

"Why, because there's no other fucking explanation for how angry I am? I could'nae possibly have the thoughts I'm having because I'm a good person and he's not, is that it?"

"No." The Professor's eyes closed, the sadness visible on his face. "That's not what I meant, Teva, and if you were thinking clearly you'd realize that." His eyes opened and she could see the weariness in them. "I meant only that whereas normally you would state your case and leave it at that, you are jumping the gun so to speak and lashing out with anger that isn't your own. It may even be that your actions against Sabretooth were affected by Logan's influence as well. I understand why you did it, and I know you wouldn't hesitate to do it again faced with the same thing. But I do truly believe no one is irredeemable."

She gritted her teeth, trying to clamp down on the swirl of anger inside of her. "I was in his head for a moment, Charles, there's no humanity in him, no remorse. He lives as his animal wants." The skin-crawling sensation she'd gotten in the few seconds of psychic contact with Creed came back full force, making her jerk hard enough to jar her leg and bring a soft sound of pain from her. "For all Logan struggles with the beast inside of him, Creed has embraced his, wholeheartedly. If what I did saves even one person, that's ... I can live with it."

Remy squeezed her hand and she looked up. Teva knew Xavier was an extreme pacifist and counseled against necessary violence, even among his X-Men, but when men like Creed existed it was more difficult to hang onto the idea of non-violence. Especially when you were staring your own gruesome death in the face and serving as a steam valve for the man you shared a psychic link with. Throughout this she'd begun to realize she wasn't just channeling Logan, he was using her to vent off the overwhelming, directionless rage and insanity that was crowding his mind; she could feel him struggling, fighting, looking for a way to break free of the memory dump that had taken place.

"That is enough about that, I think." Hank appeared behind Charles. "My patient has been through hell and I need to check her bandages."

"I will go and continue monitoring Logan," Charles said. He patted Teva's hand, silently telling her there was no argument between them. "When you are better, Teva, we will discuss his recovery."

She couldn't think of anything to say without snapping so she just let him go.

Hank shooed Remy and Rosie to the other side of the bed so that he could get to Teva's leg.

"How bad is it?" she asked as he brought over a tray of gauze and other dressings. The pain was a throbbing ache and every so often she felt her muscles spasm involuntarily, a strange feeling that made her wonder exactly what had happened.

He spoke as he moved her blankets back, preserving her modesty while revealing her left leg, which was covered in white bandages from the outside of her hip down to her knee. Two skinny plastic tubes led out from beneath the bandages and ended in clear plastic bulbs that were draining fluid from the surgical site. "I wish we had gotten to you sooner. As it was, by the time I had you stabilized it became clear that surgery would be required. I had to go in and reattach some of the tendons and muscle fibers but there was some nerve damage I couldn't correct." He continued to explain while he removed the old dressings carefully. "There has been no infection so you are out of the woods in that respect. As it stands right now, you will be facing many painful months of rehabilitation, and you may never regain full use of your leg."

She listened to his matter-of-fact yet comforting voice, knew he wasn't trying to scare her but neither was he going to lie to her. She appreciated his honesty. "Thank ye, Hank, for taking care of me," she said quietly as she watched him work.

For all the wounds were clean and being tended diligently, held closed with Steri-strips, they were still ugly, raw and red and angry-looking, quite obviously the work of an animal. Four identical marks ran along the outside of her thigh nearly from hip to knee, with a fifth mark from Sabretooth's thumb claw closer to the top of her leg but no less long. She closed her eyes against the memory, tried not to shudder and jar her leg.

"Nerve damage, ye said, and reattaching muscles and tendons, is that why it's twitching like a damn fish?"

"Ah, yes." Hank carefully examined the wound, his big hands surprisingly gentle and dexterous in their oversized latex gloves, but that didn't stop her from hissing in pain anyway. "Apologies, my dear. As to your question, the resulting loss of muscle has left the rest of the muscles in your leg without some of the correct pathways, very nearly like having a limb removed and experiencing phantom pains. It will take a while for the nerves to catch up and do their proper job." He finished his inspection and reached for fresh bandages, re-dressing the wounds. When he was finished with that he carefully removed the plastic containers at the ends of the tubes, emptying their contents into a trash bin marked for biohazard.

"When do ye think I can break the hell out of here?" she asked, shivering a little as a wave of cold hit her. She smiled at Remy when he took the folded blanket from the foot of her bed and pulled it up over her after he helped her get settled again.

Hank was humming again while he replaced the containers and then tidied up. She bit off an angry request for him to stop humming. "A few more days, I'd like to keep your wound in a relatively sterile environment while it continues to drain. If you wish to bathe I'd suggest a sponge bath, and we have the required set-up down here for you to wash your hair if you'd like."

Instinctively, she reached up and ran a hand through her hair. She'd never washed it daily and she was going on a week (more, now) since the last washing. "Washing my hair sounds like sheer bliss right now."

"I'll help you," Rosie said, speaking up. She'd been quiet since Remy had appeared but Teva had never forgotten she was there.

"Thank ye,_ a leannan_, I'd like that verra much." If nothing else in her life could be normal, she could at least have clean hair. She reached out to Logan, touched both his presence and Charles'. _~How is he, Charles?~_

_~Stable, for the moment, and unresponsive, but that may be due more to the fact that it is me who is guiding him at the moment. He seems to respond much more strongly when you are here.~_

She could in fact feel some reaction from Logan, a flicker of recognition and a sense of relief. Her fingers curled reflexively around the edge of her blanket and a hand on her head brought her back to herself. _~I'm sorry, Charles. He's using me to vent off some of the pain and anger and I'm having a difficult time of it.~_

_~I know, Teva. I will see if I can ease it, some, for both of you.~_

Remy smiled down at her. "Hank's gonna give ya some more painkillers, _chere_. Just wanted t' make sure ya knew."

Teva nodded to show she understood. She didn't like the creeping sensation she got as the morphine spread through her bloodstream, that artificial fatigue that pushed the pain down to a manageable level while making her care less about its presence. _~I love ye, Logan.~_

There was no verbal response, but she felt the touch of ghostly fingers along her cheek.

* * *

_a leannan_ - sweetheart


	6. Chapter 6

He didn't know where he was. Sounds and smells fractured around him, screaming and laughing, blood and perfume, all warring for his attention. He felt he should know what those things were, thought that sometime in the past he'd known but he'd forgotten. He was angry that he'd forgotten, and not just angry: feral, bloodlusting, unthinking. Inhuman.

Something flickered out of the corner of his eye, pink flowers of some kind, a flash of color in clothing, but when he turned it was gone, sucked away into the vortex. Another something, red blood on pale flesh, staring eyes, and then that, too, was gone. Every time he tried to look, tried to get some sense, the things slipped away.

He growled, crouched low on the ground. The thoughts came almost not as words but as images, carrying connotations he couldn't verbalize but knew what they were anyway. Every time he stood it pushed him back down - _Stay there, beast. You're not worthy of this_. He didn't know who or what the voice was, didn't quite understand what it was telling him other than to stay down.

He staggered to his feet again and felt pain bloom in his hands. He looked down, found razor-sharp blades, three protruding from each hand just above his knuckles. Had they always been there? It seemed they had but he thought he remembered them not always being this way, shining and cold and deadly. Always deadly, just not metal.

This time when he rose he stayed up, bulling his way forward heedless of the pain and confusion. He needed answers, needed to not stay like this, needed to move. He heard gunfire somewhere in the distance, more screaming, then the laughter of a woman, silver against the darkness he moved through. Amongst the bad was some good, that had to be what the laughter was and off in the distance he thought he saw light but it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, along with the mirthful sound. Another barrage of pain hit him, staggered him down to his knees and he wanted to weep, wanted to rage, wanted to scream but he didn't seem to have the capacity for it.

The pink blossoms appeared again and he reached for them.

_A woman. Japanese. Beautiful. Beckoning to him, looking back at him over her shoulder, coy and amused. She'd take a few steps and then turn to see if he was watching or following, encouraging him. He did follow her, to an orchard of cherry trees, and there -_

He jerked, looking around, wondering where he was. He thought someone had been touching him but couldn't be sure. There was pain again, still, never ceasing. A roaring in his head and all around him that filled his ears to the point he expected them to burst, to bleed, to never be able to take in sound again but they remained intact and he heard everything. Someone was babbling in German, another in French, Mandarin, Spanish ...

_James!_

His head whipped around, trying to track that voice. Male. Off to the left.

_James! What's the ETA? Fox is on our tails, we need to get moving_. Still the voice, no image, no visual. He'd heard that voice before, often. A comrade? A brother? An enemy? He didn't know.

Someone or something grabbed him and he lashed out, claws sparking in some unseen light and sinking deep into flesh. Another Japanese woman, not the one from before, was impaled on his claws, looking at him with what seemed to be love and adoration on her face. He should know her. He didn't.

She disappeared. He moved on, back on his feet, pressing forward, onward. Another male voice and this time an apparition, taller than him, big, blond hair. Without thinking he leapt on the man and hacked at him with all the savage grace of a tiger defending its territory. The man fought back, cut deep into him, and laughed. _Quod sum eris, Logan. Been tellin' ya that fer years. Everything ya touch is gonna end up dead just because it's yours._

Now he was on a battlefield, a gun in his hands. He looked down at it, then back up to see men running, fighting, shooting, dying. The gun felt unfamiliar yet familiar and suddenly he charged forward, firing, yelling out his rage. It felt good, it felt right. Men fell before him and when he lost his gun, he had a blade. He used it well, spared no mercies.

_Come back to bed, Logan._ He turned and looked at the dark-haired woman, darker eyes staring at him in the moonlit bedroom. _You keep me warm._ He went to her, reached for her, crawled into bed with her and felt her slip through his fingers.

There were wolves. Ten of them. He didn't want to hurt them but it was like someone else was controlling his movements. He'd never hurt an animal, he'd hurt himself before he did that, yet here he was. Blood. Claws. Howling. Yelping. Death.

A flash of dark auburn hair and a tune on a guitar. Whiskey-brown eyes looking at him with sadness._ I think I just miss playing for people sometimes. Listening to the crowd sing back my own words, hearing them scream when they recognize the opening chords of their favorite songs…_ Lust licking up his spine and alighting in his brain. He heard her cry out in pain and wasn't sure if it was him causing the sound.

He shook his head sharply, closing his eyes and drawing in air. He was floundering, falling, swept again and again into shards of memories that fragmented as soon as he tried to touch them, bring them close and look at them. He'd get a few seconds of sound or touch or sight and then they'd be gone again, just out of reach. His eyes opened again to the same landscape, bleak, dark, hopeless. He wanted to fall on his knees, curl up and weep or die, anything to end this, make it stop, shut it all off dear God please make it stop ...

_I'm here._ The voice, the last one, whispered across his mind, across the sky, circled back and touched him. _I'm coming. I'll find you. Keep fighting._ It was hard to understand the voice.

"I can't!" he shouted at the sky, head thrown back and arms wide. "I'm coming apart!"

_Find it. Find the center, the shelter. Here, I'll show you._

The bright light in the distance flashed again, a beacon that pulsed slowly. So far away. He couldn't make it.

_Follow. All will be well._

One foot in front of the other, again, again. He dragged himself through that minefield, that hell that made him want to howl at the sky and give up thought. He looked down at his feet. Right. Left. Right. He looked back up, was sure that the beacon was even farther away now but it still pulsed, still beckoned. Hands grabbed at him out of the dark, tried to pull him in.

"No." He used his claws, heard screams, didn't care. Anything, he'd do anything to make this stop and if that voice was true then safety was ahead. There'd be no more suffering there. He had to believe it was true or he really would just lay down on the ground and die. The life would drain out of him. He could feel himself fading anyway.

More hands reaching for him, people crying for him, begging, pleading. He ignored them as best he could, inerrant on his path, nearly mindless with grief. He felt he'd been here forever, couldn't remember ever not being here, couldn't remember if there'd ever been an elsewhere. The beacon got closer, he found the small shack and had to search for the door. It was hidden but once he found it, it opened and he shuffled inside. Dank, peeling paint, dirty floor, poorly lit. He shut the door and finally, finally felt a measure of peace. The storm raged outside, lightning and thunder and everything else he'd seen and heard, but it was slightly lesser here. Here, he might be able to pull himself together, might be able to shut out everything outside and regain some semblance of sanity.

There should have been another door. He knew that for some reason and cried out in panic, scrabbling fingers against the walls until they were bloody, he couldn't find it, where was it? The sounds from outside got louder and he saw the door had blown open. He rushed over and slammed it shut, held it closed with his body, felt it pushing against him. The things out there wanted to get inside and destroy his shelter, they pulled apart the bricks and he had to shove them back into place. He slid down the door with his back to it, kept it closed with his body, knees drawn up against his chest. He hugged his arms around them, laid his head on them, and fought to breathe. Where was the other door? It should be there.

_Find it. I'll work on my end_. The voice was back. Female. Familiar. Did things to his heart that hurt but didn't make him feel bad. She was the reason there should be a door.

Back still to the door, he let his knees fall, sitting in a position that evoked inner calm. He grasped at that concept, gathered in as much as he could. It was supposed to be safe here but he needed that other door, the one that didn't lead to the outside, the one that led further in. That was his way to freedom. He imagined bricks lining the outside walls, had to catch them when they fell from his hands, when the outside pulled them off and ate them, crumbled them to dust. He pushed them into place, one by one.

How long he sat there, he didn't know. An eternity, it felt like to him. Endless ages of breathing, focusing, trying to ignore whatever was pounding on the door at his back. The sounds from outside lessened or he at least became less aware of them. He found the calm at the center of himself buried so far down he hadn't realized it was there, and he dragged it out, pulled it over him like a blanket. He opened his eyes and focused on the far wall, drew the shape of a door with his eyes over and over, willed it into being. It would appear, it had to appear, he could feel a space on the other side of that wall beginning to open up, widen, and after what seemed like forever a door coalesced. His hands gripped his legs and he shook with the effort it had taken.

There was nothing but silence for a long stretch, the outside noises still there but muted, and finally the door opened. And she stepped in.

* * *

_"Quod sum eris"_ is Latin for "I am what you will become." Sabretooth has always told Logan that some day, Logan will become like Victor. Vic said this exact quote to Logan in a comic shortly before Logan decapitated Vic with the Muramasa blade. One of the dumbest arcs I've ever read (curse you Jeph Loeb!) but I love _love_ **love** the Latin phrase.


	7. Chapter 7

"Are you sure you're ready for this, Teva?"

The Scot looked at Xavier and Hank, the latter of whom had spoken, concern clear in his voice. "Aye, Hank. Charles has been sustaining the link for a week now and Logan is getting weaker, you said so yourself. If I dinnae do this how much longer would he have?"

The doctor nodded gravely, understanding even as he worried. "I understand, Teva. It's a noble thing you're doing." He held the elevator for her, on crutches now that she was semi-mobile, and for Charles and his wheelchair. "Are you still taking the Vicodin?" he asked as he entered his code to access the lower levels.

She nodded, leaning up against the wall of the elevator to take some of the strain off her arms. The crutches were useful but they were a pain to use and put a lot of stress on her shoulders. "At night, mostly, to help me sleep. Keeps me from moving around too much and waking up too often." It also made it harder for her to avoid getting pulled in by Logan, even with Charles working around the clock to help her maintain her shields, but she'd take the pain relief if it meant she could give Logan some of her strength. The last week had been hell on earth and the astral plane, fighting his rage so that she didn't fly off the handle over every little thing, didn't snap at her friends who were just trying to take care of her.

The elevator came to its stop and she followed Xavier out, the two keeping pace with each other with Hank behind. She went into the medbay first and headed straight for Logan's secluded room, leaning against his bed so that she could touch him. More often than not she could be found in here when she wasn't upstairs for some important reason; Hank couldn't usually convince her to sleep upstairs, and she ate her meals quickly before coming back down to keep her vigil. She'd bathed Logan just that morning and even managed to wash his hair with some help from Rosie. She touched his head and found his hair still a little damp but not enough to concern her.

What did concern her was that he was cool to the touch. As long as she'd known him he'd run hot, a few degrees over 100 as a side effect of his healing factor, making him feel feverish to her. She loved curling up with him and feeling that heat sink into her. Now, as yet another sign of his failing health, his temperature hovered around 96.

"Here." Hank took her crutches from her and brought a big, comfortable chair over, helping her to sit down where she could still touch her lover. "I'd like to hook you up to an EKG and an EEG so that I can monitor you, if you wouldn't mind."

"No, that's fine, Doc." Teva reached for Logan's hand and ran her fingers along the back of it, touching the slight divots just above his knuckles where the claws emerged from. Hank moved around her, placing electrodes along her forehead and the base of her neck, then beneath her shirt along her chest and ribcage, hooking the leads to their respective machines.

"I will be monitoring you both in my own way," Charles said, settling his chair on the other side of the bed. "You have been holding Logan up this past week and when you enter his mind, I will be holding both of you up."

Hank finished his preparations and stepped back, dimming the lights that he had raised to set up Teva's monitors. "As Charles mentioned, you are holding Logan from the lower reaches of a coma. He has higher brain functions because of the energy he is drawing off of you, and you need to be aware that should your link to Charles be severed, you will have a limited amount of time to escape before both of you sink farther. At that point your bodies will begin to die."

That brought it full circle for her. Where before she'd felt complete confidence in her abilities, knowing Charles was there to catch her if she fell, finding that the link was so tenuous made her stomach want to drop out of her body. "Are you asking me if I understand the consequences?"

Charles nodded. "Yes. I know you won't choose differently knowing, but I want you to be fully cognizant, to understand the gravity of the situation. Logan's mind is in so much turmoil right now he could very easily drag you under without intending to."

"I understand." Teva kept her grip on Logan's hand, not because she needed the physical contact in order to access their link, but because she needed to touch him to remind herself he was still there. He wasn't gone yet and she'd be damned if she let him slip any farther. "Charles?" she asked.

"I am ready."

She slipped free of her body, slid down the link expecting to find the door that was always there. What she found was rubble, almost a cave-in, and as she looked around she realized she was now trapped. She moved in the direction she thought was right (here, her leg was uninjured) and reached out to begin digging her way through. The mind could be very literal at times and she'd been cognizant of Logan's struggle to contain his anger, his hopelessness, waging war against the onslaught of memory. This must have been a representation of that and she was going to have to fight her way through it. Each stone and piece of rubble took time to remove, heavy and cumbersome despite the fact it wasn't real; this was a mental battle more than a physical one, and each piece she removed gave her a flash of memory or thought from Logan.

A beautiful Japanese woman, not Mariko, the village she lived in looked like something from a Kurosawa film.

Another piece. A man called Logan "James" and told him to get a move on. They were dressed in some kind of military garb, black, weapons done in matte so they wouldn't shine in the dark.

Another piece. Her hands were bleeding. There was Mariko, Logan had killed her to save her, to spare her a painful and agonizing death.

Another piece. Sabretooth, looking somehow older with a short military-style haircut, taunting and laughing at Logan while the smaller man attacked, telling him they were more alike than not.

Teva moved forward, moved another piece. One of the World Wars, likely II because there was a battlefield full of men shouting in German. Logan fought first with a gun and then with a blade.

Another piece. A dark-haired, dark-eyed Native American woman telling Logan to come back to bed.

Teva struggled, felt her strength flagging and pulled on her stubbornness. Another piece. Ten wolves, shining silver against the snow, then bleeding on it.

She heard her own voice speaking, saw herself as Logan saw her. It hadn't been so long since she'd said those words about the life she'd lost.

It hurt. Everything hurt: her body, her soul, her mind. She could feel it from Logan, too, felt him struggling, wanting to give up. _I'm here_, she told him. She gathered in her will, tried to focus on the door they always had between them, a representation of their link. She couldn't see the end of the tunnel she was in but if they could work together, if she could give him something to work and move towards, perhaps they'd meet in the middle and this would be easier. _I'm coming. I'll find you. Keep fighting._

She heard him scream that he couldn't, had a vision of him throwing his head back and holding his arms out wide as if to show how big his pain was. _Find it. Find the center, the shelter_. She imagined something for him, crude but serviceable, though it would take on whatever form he gave it. She just provided the basic structure and if she needed to, she'd help him reinforce it. _Here, I'll show you. _She made herself a light in the dark to guide him.

Together they worked, both moving towards the same end. She reassured him as best she could and kept working, kept removing pieces of rubble, hoping she'd find what she needed. She felt it the moment he reached the shelter, felt him scurry inside and shut the door, felt his panic and fear that he should be safe here but the outside was still trying to get in. Another vision of him curled into himself on the floor, holding his own legs to his chest in an attempt to protect his vulnerable anatomy while he wondered where the door leading out of that hell was. _Find it. I'll work on my end._ She reassured him yet again and redoubled her efforts at clearing a path.

She felt him bricking up his shelter even as he pulled on the calm at the very center of his being, so small and minuscule now in the face of the terror raging both inside and out. He blew on the flame of it and made it bigger, wrapped that shining thing around himself and held on for dear life, then focused on making the door.

Finally she moved the last bit and found the door frame. She pressed herself against the door a moment, eyes closing while she prayed to whichever god or goddess wanted to listen that she would do right by this man, that she wouldn't have to let him down, that she'd have the strength and the courage to see this through. Her hand found the doorknob and she opened it, stepped through.

Logan was still huddled on the floor and she'd never seen him look so haggard, so old. Whereas normally he looked like a man in his physical prime, just rather weather-beaten, now he looked like he'd aged decades, every line on his face deeper, eyes sunken further and ringed in shadow. He looked very much like a man close to death and resigned to that fact. And when she stepped towards him, he scrambled away backwards on all fours.

"Logan?" she asked, stopping halfway across the room with her hand out towards him. She felt like she was dealing with a spooked animal and in a lot of ways that wasn't so far from the truth. There was confusion in his eyes like he might not understand exactly who she was or that she was here to help him, not harm him. "It's me."

"The voice." His own voice was different, hoarser, like he'd been screaming for a very long time. She saw recognition alight in his eyes. "Teva." He shot to his feet and came at her, would have knocked her over if he hadn't wrapped his arms around her and nearly crushed the breath out of her.

"It's okay," she said, extricating her arms so that she could return the rough embrace. "I'm here, I -"

"How long?" He pulled away enough to look at her and she could see the wildness still there in his eyes. The howling outside got stronger, buffeted the windows and the door leading there. "How long have I been here?" The words came slowly like they were hard to form.

She touched his face, watched him flinch. "A week. I couldn't get here before, Hank was keeping me in the infirmary so my wounds did'nae get infected."

Logan let her go to pace, back and forth, in front of the outside door. "What happened to you?"

"You dinnae remember anything?"

He growled at her, snarled and bared his teeth. "Not a fuckin' thing. What happened?"

"We were at the facility, up in the Rockies and Sabretooth showed up. I think he knew you were going to trigger a failsafe that would overload your brain, maybe it triggered your old programming, I dinnae ken. Either way you went crazy and I think you would have come at me if Sabretooth had'nae fought you, at one point I was looking at you and you ... were gone. There was nothing left of you in there."

He let her go to pace. "I think I remember up to that point," he said, shaking his head. "It's all jumbled, all fucked up. What happened after?"

She watched him, very aware of the strength of his presence here on the astral plane, even when his body was weakening. All of it was focused in this place. "He took you out, I thought you were dead by the pool of blood you were lying in. He came after me and we fought, I tried to control him with my telepathy but he broke through. He clawed up my leg and I put some bullets in his head." She shook her own head in remembrance of the horrible things she'd been thinking of doing to him and the fact that, even now, those thoughts still appealed to her. She reflected on the fact that what she'd once thought was merely Logan venting off onto her may have been her own anger.

As she finished speaking he growled, stopped pacing to look at her. "Did ya kill 'im?"

Teva shook her head. "No, he ... Remy said when they got there he woke up and took off, he apparently seemed disoriented." Her head shook again at the wave of anger that pulsed through her. "Fucking wish I _had_ killed him."

"That's me talkin'."

"No, Logan, it's really not. Just because you have'nae seen me with the same anger and rage that you have does'nae mean it's no inside me." She looked down at her own hands. "You just ... you made it it stronger. Closer to the surface." She looked back up at him. "How do you live with this, Logan? It feels like it's going to burn me up."

The answer started as a growl, completely pre-verbal and she could tell he was struggling for words. "Sometimes it does burn ya up, I don't much remember when it happens." His teeth clenched again. "It's always there. I don't want ya to have it."

She laughed softly. "A wee bit late for that. I'll learn to handle it the way you do, it will'nae hurt me." She saw the look he was giving her, was surprised to see concern underneath everything. "What?"

"Just rememberin' the last time ... the last time ya killed."

Her eyes dropped again to her hands. "Oh," she said quietly. A moment later she saw his bare feet move into her line of vision. "I try not to think about that, that I have that capability in me." Though she'd spoken to Xavier and allowed him to counsel her through it, the memory still hurt her, made her question herself. It didn't matter that she'd done it in self-defense.

Logan touched her face gently though she could feel he was holding himself back, shaking with the tension. "Listen to me, baby." He made her look at him, grabbing her chin more roughly when she wouldn't oblige and holding it tightly with his fingers. "We all have it in us. I know what he was sayin' to ya, I can hear it." His eyes blazed with the knowledge he got from her and he let her go abruptly, stalking away.

"What? What is it?"

"What Creed said, about men like us. Needin' to act like animals." His voice was growling again, stronger than before.

Oh. "Have I ever once, at any point, asked you to stop and you have'nae? And for that matter, have'nae I been the one to ask for it?" It was awkward for some reason to be discussing this now, of all times, when his life hung in the balance, but part of her knew this was a piece of his turmoil. "Dammit, Logan, I saw those things in you and did'nae flinch away. I _want_ it."

"But why? Why the hell would ya want me to lose control when I could hurt ya so badly?"

She blinked at him as realization dawned. "Logan ... You are not Victor Creed. The things he threatened me with are things you're no capable of. Yes, you both have an animal inside but he does'nae fight against his, and all he wants from women is to hear them scream in pain and despair while he makes them bleed." She stepped towards him, sighed when he took a step back. "You. Are. Not. Him. Your beast wants you to claim and mark a mate and I've always been okay with that, I dinnae care if I hurt because I like the pain. And I like knowing I'm yours, that there's a physical manifestation of that."

He was shaking his head back and forth but he couldn't back up anymore, his back was against the wall. He was panicking again.

Teva grabbed his hands and forced him to touch her, forced him to let her touch him. "Logan, please. Accept that I want this, that I want you and I want _all_ of you. The anger and the claws, the love and everything else. I'm no going to turn away from you because you want to claim me for your own, because part of you needs to be rough."

His hands shifted from where she'd put them on her sides, fingers encircling her waist and tightening on her. "I need ya." He pulled her close, crushing her almost painfully against him and burying his face against her neck. "God, baby, I need ya so badly. I don't wanna lose you."

She held him in her arms, stroking his hair. Her body trembled with her own need for him but there were other things more important right now. "Logan, we need to get you out of here. Your body is dying because your mind cannae handle the strain of all your memories. If we can pull you out of here I can let you back in to one at a time, so that you can work through them without being overwhelmed." She felt his fear and his apprehension. "We dinnae have much time."

He turned his head to look out the windows and she felt him go rigid in her arms. "The door's gone."

"No it's not, I'm looking right at it."

"Not the one to the outside, Teva." He turned her so that she could see the door that had led her inside was gone, and she felt her blood run cold.

She let go of him to go and touch the wall, where there was no evidence a door had ever been there. She ran her hands over the peeling paint, dug her nails in a little. "_Faigh muin_," she cursed, feeling her own panic rise up. She pushed against the wall, beat her fists against it even as she strained against it with her telepathy.

The door to the outside slammed open and she heard Logan cry out, first in shock and then in horror. "Teva!"

She turned in time to see the swirl of phantoms pour through the door, screaming and jibbering, headed straight for both of them. Logan surged forward, claws out, but he had no effect on them, he simply slid through. They taunted him, laughed at him, as they came for Teva and she slid sideways along the wall hoping to avoid them, but they kept coming. They encircled her in their madness and she felt cuts opening on her skin, her blood splashing onto the ground from dozens of tiny wounds all over her body and she cried out in fear and pain. "No!" she cried, spreading her hands out and pushing against them with her telepathy. Slowly the spectres moved back, away, fading as Logan slammed the door shut again. She felt pain inside of her body, too, wasn't sure what was going on.

"The hell was that?" she asked even as she sank to her knees, hands against the very real wounds. _"Dia,"_ she breathed out. Logan knelt before her and touched her, whispering an apology when she hissed in pain. Something was building inside of her that didn't feel wholly right, didn't seem to be just from the cuts, and as she sank against Logan's strong arms she felt that something burst inside of her, dragging a scream from her and knocking them both down.


	8. Chapter 8

The pain inside of her, the pain of all the wounds, increased until it felt like she was burning. Mentally she reached for Logan, sought comfort in his presence and she took in his love, what little calm he still held, mimicked in herself as she'd pressed her own emotions onto others in the past. She raised her arms where she could see them, to see if they really were on fire and, slowly, she began to understand what was happening. She'd been in Logan's head when he'd healed before and gotten a taste of what it felt like, of how his brain interpreted the signals from his body to fix the damaged cells. On instinct she did the same herself in a more crude fashion, then lay there on her back gasping for air as if she'd just surfaced from underwater.

Slowly, her body shaking, she sat up and touched her skin, found some of the wounds healed, some just scars and some completely gone. Her eyes flicked to Logan lying there beside her, staring at her. "Logan? Talk to me, please ..."

He groaned, eyes closing briefly before he opened them again and shook himself, rising onto hands and knees before he sat back on his heels. "How did ya do that?" he asked. He looked a little fearful of her, kept a slight distance from her that was felt more than seen.

"I was trying to draw on your calm, trying to make the pain go away." She couldn't stop touching herself, seeing what she'd done. "You ken I can mimic others' emotions the same way I can read them and give them my own. Somehow I mimicked your healing factor, too."

He reached for her finally and she lost some of her panic even as she could still read fear and confusion from him. His hands joined hers in touching wounds that shouldn't have healed yet, should still be bleeding. "Almost like it's not a complete mimic," he said quietly. "Ya think its yer secondary mutation?"

Teva shifted into a more comfortable position, sitting tailor fashion. "I dinnae ken. I guess I'd assumed at my age I'd gotten all I can."

"Like yer so old." He actually smiled at her, a genuine smile for all he looked so tired. "I know it happens sometimes under stress, that's how Emma got her diamond form. Maybe ya can mimic all kinds of things."

Her mouth had quirked up at his small joke before her face became serious again. "You looked like you were scared of me, for a moment there."

He dropped his gaze from hers. "Yeah. Didn't ... only person who's ever taken that from me was Rogue an' that was different, it felt different from what you did." He touched her face, tucked hair back behind her ear. "Sorry, darlin'. I don't mind lettin' ya borrow it if ya need it." His brow furrowed and he looked back up at her. "Ya think you'll still be able to do it when we get outta here?"

"Does'nae matter right now, Logan. There's only one way out of here and I can feel you getting weaker." She'd noticed it more after she'd healed herself. And she felt stronger, much stronger. Had she taken something from him that he'd needed?

Logan tried to protest that and couldn't because he could feel it, too. Was he actually dying? He'd never thought it possible but there was a first time for everything. "I don't know if I can make it, Teva. Nearly died out there the last time."

She touched his face, smoothed her fingers across his brow and the almost always-present frown there. "Last time I was'nae here. Now I am. I'll damn well carry you if I have to, but this is the only way out and we're losing time."

He got shakily to his feet, drew her up with him. "I can do it, if I have you."

"You always have me," she said, pressing herself against him when he held her. "Always." She looked at the room around them, concentrated on the makeup of it. What she'd given him, made for him, he'd shored up with bricks and made stronger, but now they were going to have to tear it down. They could always leave by the door but she was afraid if they left this place here they'd see it as a refuge, a place to be safe when what they really needed to do was concentrate on working through his memories.

She swallowed the taste of bile at the back of her throat. She hadn't told him what was going on now that it was just the two of them. There was no way to know how much time was left to them, minutes, hours, days ...

"I need you to concentrate on this place, Logan. We're going to have to destroy it."

"What?"

Teva touched his face again, cupped his cheek in her hand so that his muttonchops tickled her palm. "I dinnae want us to forget our path, our focus. If we leave this here we may be tempted to come back and no leave again." She kissed him gently, wanting to stay like this forever. "Do you trust me?"

"Ya know I do. With my life."

She nearly choked on that. _You have no idea, Logan. _"Alright, then. Help me tear this place down. And dinnae let go of me."

They clung to each other and reached out with something not physical, touching the bricks he'd used to reinforce the construct, taking them down one at a time. The force outside took advantage immediately, disintegrating the bricks as quickly as they were pulled off, eating at the walls from the roof down. Chaos slammed into them, the howling morass of memories sweeping them in as the last of the shelter disappeared. "Everything's fragmented," she heard him say, his voice pained. "S'why it was so hard before, couldn't pull anything together."

Teva kept her hand in his and reached out with the other, tried to force some semblance of order by grabbing onto the first thing that whizzed by. Nothing wanted to stay in place to be seen, they slipped through her fingers like sand and stung with the same ferocity. Finally she got something solid and strained to pull in all the pieces of it, finding them by sheer blind instinct. She pushed them together and did her best to make it stick.

_The cabin sat far back in the woods with only a small path leading to it through the trees. It was cozy, well-cared for and obviously built with love and attention to detail. Logan moved up the path towards it with a leather-protected ax slung over one shoulder, a lunch pail in his other hand. He was actually whistling some old tune and radiating happiness._

_A figure appeared on the tiny front porch. Kayla Silver Fox, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and she was all his. Her face lit up at the sight of him. "You're in a good mood today," she said, greeting him with a kiss._

_Teva suppressed the small pang of jealousy. It was neither the time nor the place for it._

_Logan grinned at her. "Got a raise so I'm feelin' pretty good." They went inside and he set down the ax and lunch pail, pulling Silver Fox into his arms to kiss her thoroughly. "Think ya could make my day even better?"_

_Blessedly, from Teva's standpoint, the scene shifted to night again. She saw Logan leaning against the wall with one hand on either side of the window, gazing out. Silver Fox stirred from sleep, looking around for him. "Come back to bed, Logan." She held a hand out to him. "You keep me warm."_

_"What was Victor doin' out here?"_

_Silver Fox blinked at him a moment. "Just the usual, pestering me about how he'd be better for me than you. Jack ran him off." A huge wolfhound that Teva hadn't noticed before thumped his tail against the floorboards at mention of his name._

_"He's comin' around more often," Logan said, climbing back under the covers and drawing her close. "I don't like it, nothin' good's gonna come of it."_

_"Everything will be fine, my love. Don't worry about it."_

_The memory shifted once more and Teva swayed with the force of it, the pain suddenly radiating from Logan and a low, gutteral cry of anguish ripping itself from him. Silver Fox lay on the ground, gutted, smelling of sex but not from Logan. The scene shifted again and there was Victor standing in front of him in the middle of a torrential downpour. The bigger man grinned mockingly. "Didja like yer birthday present, runt? Told ya I'd have her whether she wanted it or not."_

_"You killed her, you sonofabitch."_

_"Fucked her, too." The crude remark seemed all the worse coming from the mouth of an admitted murderer. Creed flexed his hands and his claws extended, deadly and sharp. "She screamed a lot, mostly for you. Couldn't get her to scream my name."_

_Logan launched himself forward with a howl of pain and rage, knife already in hand; even here he didn't know about his claws. They battled fiercely, slipping in the mud and rain, throwing each other into the sides of buildings and getting right back up, barely winded. It was Creed who won by sheer strength, not even Logan's berserker rage giving him the upper hand; if anything it made him weaker because he didn't have the force of mind to make him watch his opponent carefully. A well-aimed swipe of claws to the jugular brought Logan down, twitching and bleeding out onto the ground._

_Creed knelt beside him. "Remember, runt. Anything ya have, any joy or beautiful thing, I'm gonna take it from ya. Ya don't deserve it." He smacked Logan across the face, then got up and walked away. Logan's eyes followed him._

Teva felt tears on her face, hadn't realized she'd been crying. Seeing what Creed had done to Silver Fox made her own survival that much more poignant. She turned to find Logan crouched on the ground, one hand flat on the dirt of the road to steady himself. "I'm sorry," she offered.

He leaned his body against her legs. "I put her in danger, bein' with her. Knew Creed, knew how he was, knew he wouldn't let her live but I just couldn't let her go."

She touched the top of his head, fingers sinking into the inky wildness of his hair. "You loved her, Logan. Same as you love me. You were entitled to some happiness in your life." She felt him shudder.

"Another one."

"Are you -"

"Another one." There was conviction in his voice. She reached out and wrestled a new memory, fought past the pain tearing her up inside. The first one hadn't been so bad, she'd barely felt anything but this one was making itself difficult.

_A lavishly appointed bedroom and a sniffling little boy tucked up in a huge four-poster bed that nearly swallowed him whole. Teva glanced aside and found herself alone again, but when she looked back at the boy she cocked her head to the side trying to figure out why he was familiar. The eyes, she'd seen those before ..._

_There was shouting. The boy climbed out of the bed wearing a nightshirt that would have been commonplace at the end of the 19th century. He took off down the hallway outside the room and Teva followed him up a flight of stairs to what seemed to be another bedroom. "Papa? Is that you?" the boy asked. He rubbed his eyes blearily and opened the door. "I heard a noise -"_

_A shotgun blast. The boy screamed, a redhaired girl in the room was screaming, a man that looked alarmingly like Logan was waving the shotgun Teva had heard while the boy scurried to the man lying on the floor, victim of the Logan-lookalike who was shouting for someone to shut the boy up. There was a woman calling the boy "James". Everything was in chaos, there was another younger man who also looked a bit like Logan (was that him? he certainly talked like Logan) also wielding a shotgun. The gun discharged, more screaming, more yelling, more chaos._

_The little boy ran at the older man and was thrown off as the man began yelling, but suddenly he clutched at his abdomen where the boy had struck him, blood appearing to soak through his clothing, and he was falling, gasping, dying ..._

_Teva's eyes flicked up at an agonized scream and the boy, the weak thing, was kneeling on the floor with three bone claws piercing the backs of each of his hands, his blood mingling with that of his victim's. If she could have spoken into the memory she would have because clarity struck with painful precision. This was Logan's childhood! He'd already killed someone at this tender age and it broke her heart._

_He was driven out, then, with the redhaired girl, shunned as some kind of monster. He had claws, after all, wasn't that what he was?_

Logan was leaning against her again, catching his breath, something he'd never needed to do before. His body felt heavier than its usual weight even with the adamantium skeleton, and he was looking down at his hands as if he'd never seen them before. "I didn't know they were there before," he said, softly. "Always thought Weapon X gave 'em to me." He grimaced, turned his head away from her. "Goddammit, it hurts."

"I know," she said, because she could feel it, too. The last memory had been shocking, worse than either had expected. And she could feel him faltering. "We have to go on."

It was his turn to say, "I know." He closed his eyes a moment. "Let's keep goin'."

She braced herself to pull in another one and nearly lost her footing when the next one she latched onto decided to fight back. Pain exploded in her head and she cried out even as she made it cooperate, found herself on her knees when she opened her eyes to see where it had taken them.

* * *

_Notes: Obviously I'm not going with the arc where Logan had the adamantium stripped from his bones by Magneto, thus this being the first time he finds out about the bone claws. I just don't like that arc and, again, AU here._


	9. Chapter 9

_Japan. He'd come here_ _after WWII_ _to learn martial arts, the way of the samurai, from Ogun. He fell in love with the country, found a place aside from Canada that was like home, a refuge, a sanctuary. He learned quickly and he learned well, taking all lessons to heart, molding himself after men of honor. And then Ogun had sent him to study under Bando Saburo who would teach him how to be a man, to have the life all men should lead. _

_Teva watched the way he moved, the suppression of arrogance and ego that he'd finally mastered. He looked a little bit younger here, maybe in his 30s, though if what she'd gathered from the memory of his childhood was true, he was almost pushing 50 here._

_And after falling in love with the land, he fell in love with a woman._

_She was achingly beautiful, sweet and kind and everything he'd never thought he could have. He was awed and humbled by her love and floored when she agreed to marry him, to be his wife. This delicate lotus had agreed to honor him as no other woman had. And then she told him she was with child, and he was over the moon._

_There was a supernatural being that lived on the mountain that shadowed the tiny village, a strong being whose activities affected almost everything around him. Teva watched the memory as Logan was overtaken with berserker fury, something that hadn't happened in years now, and he killed a man with his claws. It was agony, knowing that he'd broken vows,_ _the choice had been taken from him_ _and his peaceful life of obscurity was at an end. He returned home, knowing the villagers would exile him but he needed to see Itsu, his sweet wife._

_He found her dead. Gutted, much like Silver Fox, but Fox hadn't been pregnant, and Victor was nowhere near Japan. And whatever beast had killed his beautiful Itsu had also made sure that the child did not survive. He buried them beneath the cherry trees and left. He left behind the discipline and the goodness because it was clear to him he wasn't meant for that kind of life, wasn't meant to have anything that could make him happy._

Teva found herself flat on her back in the nightmare world, staring up at the sky as it swirled with black and purple phantoms that howled and laughed. She could still hear snippets of what sounded like conversations and slowly, painfully, she rolled onto her side to find Logan lying face-down, head turned, eyes staring at her. No, not at her, _through_ her.

"Logan?" she asked. She leaned over and touched his face, shocked to the core to feel tears beneath her fingers. She wiped them away. "Logan, I'm so sorry." She'd said the same thing about Fox but she still meant it, meant it even more now for the sheer enormity of what he'd lost. She watched his eyes close tight. "Baby, I know it's hard, but we have to keep going." She would have given him the time to adjust if they'd had it.

His eyes opened again and this time he saw her, acknowledged her. "I'm okay," he said. "I'll be okay."

She nodded, helped him sit up with her arm around his back. The memories were getting harder to pull in, like they were fighting back, or maybe it was his mind fighting back. Maybe his mind just wanted to let him die. With half a thought she found him weaker still and her own borrowed strength was beginning to wane. Tears burned in her eyes both for what Logan had gone through and for the realization that she might let him down despite her best intentions. "I'll get another," she told him quietly, leaning her head against his. She'd get another if it killed her.

She felt his grip on her arm, his fingers ice cold. _Please, God, dinnae let me fail him_, she prayed for the first time since she'd been a little girl. She reached out, not with her hands, but with her mind. Shards of memories flew past her, through her, cutting things without leaving wounds behind. As she pulled the memories in and made them cohesive for Logan, they tore her apart, took their toll out on her spirit and her mind. Her body jerked as she caught one and it physically hit her trying to pull away. "No," she growled through clenched teeth. "No, you're not getting away."

_He was young and strong after a childhood of sickness. Rose was with him and he loved her so much it made his chest feel tight whenever he looked at her. He worked hard for her, for them, for the life they'd made, and he wanted more from her. But she'd chosen another man and he had to step aside, had to accept her choice. And when Dog came to get his revenge, Logan popped the bone claws he'd kept hidden for years and prepared to finish the fight when someone pushed Rose out of the crowd -_

Teva lurched, fell onto hands and knees as she lost the memory. She grasped at another, didn't even look to see how Logan was faring, this was going all wrong ...

_The Devil's Brigade. A group of the nastiest fighters ever to walk the earth, and the leader, Silas Burr, was the worst of them all. Logan hated him, didn't want anything to do with him but Burr was his commanding officer. Then Burr killed Logan's woman and, in the ensuing fight, Burr gouged out one of Logan's eyes. He'd wear an eye patch while he roamed the streets of Madripoor for the next -_

"Argh!" Teva heard Logan cry out but things were happening too fast, it was like once she'd decided this had to go on, the memories took over and weren't going to let up. She didn't even have to touch one this time, it just came.

_A man stood in front of Logan, bleeding and obviously in the middle of being tortured. It was his job to break this man. He carved the American flag into his face and drove him -_

"What -?"

_A battlefield. Explosions. Gunfire. Men shouting in English and Vietnamese. Logan shoved his knife into another man's chest and -_

_A young blonde woman who'd grow up into one of his closest friends, Carol Danvers -_

_Another battlefield. Germans. No Man's Land and mines and trenches -_

_A shooting range. He doesn't like guns. He shot a man -_

Teva reached for Logan and couldn't touch him, he was too far away, she was losing the battle ...

_Alcohol. A bottle full of drugs, pills. He needs them to drown out -_

_Claws buried in someone's body -_

_The strong scent of smoke -_

_The touch of hands -_

_Someone laughing -_

_Crying -_

_Blood -_

"NO!"

Logan was face down on the ground again, claws extended, blood everywhere but it wasn't his. "Teva?" He could hear her whimpering, moaning in pain and it took him a moment to find her, curled into a fetal position on the ground. Her body shook violently. "Teva, baby, what's wrong?" he asked, trying to think past the rush. "Sweetheart ..." His claws retracted with a soft _snakt._

She lifted her head, slowly, her face a mask of blood that looked alarming against her pale skin. "I'm sorry," she sobbed, trying to pull away from his touch. "I told you I'd save you and I cannae, it's killing me -"

"Shhh." He felt stronger and he wasn't sure why, didn't question it as he pulled her onto his lap and held her. "It'll be okay, we have time -"

"No." She said the word so quietly, a shade of a whisper. "We're dying, Logan."

He was touching her, wiping blood away from her face, revealing tiny cuts all over. "I know I was, but we'll get out of here. I don't need ya to carry me darlin'."

Teva shuddered, her hands coming up to grip his shirt as her face nuzzled into his neck. "Before I came in here, Charles was holding us both up. You've been in a coma and I've been sustaining you, and I knew that if I lost that connection to Charles, we would'nae have very long before our bodies began to die."

"What?" He felt anger bubble up and got his fingers around her upper arms, he wanted to shake her. "Dammit, Teva, you came in here knowin' it could kill you? How could ya be so stupid?"

"I did'nae want to lose you!" She buried her face in his neck again, sobbing. "I cannae lose you, Logan. I cannae! I promised I would'nae let you go."

He breathed through his nose, tried to calm the raging beast inside that wanted to hurt her for being so reckless. "I'm not worth that, darlin'. You've seen what kind of man I am."

She lifted her head to look at him. "Yes, I've seen what kind of man you are. Everyone has done things they are'nae proud of and I'll be damned if I let you sit there and tell me you're no worth it!" She hit his chest with her fist, once, twice, over his heart. "I ken what kind of man you are, you're the kind of man who would do this if you were in my place and I was in yours. You would'nae give up on me so how could you think I'd give up on you so easily?" She touched his face, her hands slipping around the back if his neck, her thumbs stroking his jaw as she caught his gaze with hers. "_Aishiteru, Logan-san."_

The words hit him with physical force, knocked the breath from him. "Where did ya hear that, darlin'? I've never spoken to ya in Japanese."

Teva smiled, her lips trembling with the strength of her emotions. "I heard you say that to me, once, when you were drifting off to sleep. I saw in your mind what it meant." She took his hand and pressed his palm over her heart, holding it there while she placed her other hand over his heart. "I'm sorry, Logan, that I could'nae take you out of here."

He flipped his hand so that he could curl his fingers around hers. "Ya been carryin' me this whole time, so to speak?"

She nodded weakly. "Aye."

Logan wrapped his arms around her, his hand touching the back of her head to keep her close. "I'll take it the rest of the way, _mo chridhe._" The Gaelic endearment felt odd on his lips and he heard her hiccuping laugh at his bad pronunciation. "Just hang on to me."

_This memory seemed so much more stable with him being the one to control it, to guide it. He felt a hand in his and glanced aside to find Teva there; in the past, it had been her watching while he relived it. Was it different with him leading? She looked at him and offered him a tiny smile before she turned back to witness._

_He was there, somehow managing to look older than present day. He walked back to his car outside of what looked like a dive bar and there were men following him, waiting for him. He fought like a caged animal, got a few good licks in before they tranquilized him, got him under control, complaining the whole time that he was harder to take down than they'd been told._

_The memory became jumbled, glimpses of strange things, sounds that had inhabited his darkest dreams for years. This was Weapon X, they both knew. He didn't remember being taken, didn't remember the struggle, his only clear memory was escaping but even that was distorted. Some part of him had been aware the entire time, throughout the months he'd been there, enough to keep these memories back before they'd destroyed his mind._

_People in labcoats, mainly a man and a woman. Slightly less often was a tall, thin, balding creep who seemed to be the one in charge. He stared out of spectacles that gave him a mad scientist air (not that he didn't already give that impression even without them). That man took delight in torturing his subjects, in pushing to see if and how they'd survive, and he was tremendously overjoyed to have such a specimen to work on. _

_Logan watched himself being prepped, his body shaved clean so that probes and other terrible things could be inserted before they dropped him into a nutrient bath. He'd been semi-lucid because they hadn't realized at this point exactly what it would take to knock him out completely and that had made the whole experience that much more horrifying that he couldn't just be unconscious. They began the adamantium bonding process almost immediately and he could hear them discussing the strange readings, the things they didn't understand as to why his body reacted the way it did, and the fact that his hair was growing back rapidly. He didn't understand the technical talk for the most part but got the gist of it: he was a freak of nature and they were going to use him._

_There were long stretches of incoherence punctuated by bursts of violence. A couple times the animal inside of him asserted itself and lashed out at the people hurting him, he didn't know why they were hurting him, why wouldn't they stop hurting him? The tall, thin man tried to control him, he heard them discussing wiping his memories to make him a more efficient killer: after all, animals didn't have emotions, those were what got in the way of humans reaching their true potential. Logan felt Teva squeeze his hand, a silent reassurance of her presence. If he thought hard enough he could feel her, feel how weak she still was and he thanked her for standing with him, witnessing his darkest moments._

_They stripped him of everything and turned him into a weapon. Called him Experiment X to dehumanize him, make him more animalistic because, of course, animals didn't have names. They just were. There was some way the tall man could speak into his mind and tell him what to do. They dumped sheep's blood on him and sent him out into the woods to see how he'd fare against a pack of wolves that had been starved for days on end. Something inside of him broke to kill such magnificent creatures, beings who'd done nothing to deserve their fates. Left to their own devices they would have never attacked a human being. He had their blood on his hands now._

_So much blinding pain. They cut into him again and again to do things to his body, to study him. They thought he was insensate, unable to comprehend what they were doing to him but some part of him was always aware. The man trapped inside of him raged just as surely as the animal ever had. Some of the things they did to him gave them more control. In a gruesome display of power they activated his claws one by one, a sick joke to them to show what they could do._

_He was helpless to stop them and the worst had just begun._

* * *

_Aishiteru_ - 'I love you' in Japanese


	10. Chapter 10

Logan felt sick, felt the same from Teva, and he wondered why this particular memory should be so vivid, so consuming, especially when he'd already remembered parts of it. Why was this one playing out so strongly?

_Part of controlling someone was giving them false hope. He and Teva watched as the animal broke free and went on a rampage killing anyone and everyone in his path just for hurting him. It was a purely feral thing. Animals didn't understand human motivations, all they understood was good and bad, and pain was very, very bad. You stop the ones who hurt you and if you have to kill them, you do. So they let him loose and he killed them all, coming finally to the three he saw the most often. The man with the beard and the glasses shot him and then died hard, the bullets doing little more than angering Logan further. He spared the woman, didn't know why, he just didn't want to kill her. She'd been questioning the whole process. Then he hunted down the tall man. He fought and regained some semblance of language, of intelligence, and he killed him. The man, his captor, died horribly. _

_Logan came to afterwards and moved on, confused, not knowing what had happened. There was a voice that he'd thought was talking to him and he spoke back, gaining coherence until he realized it was a recording. He left that room, wanting to get away from wherever he was and he found a body, a man who'd been killed brutally, a man he thought he recognized. There was blood on his own hands, his body, but he had no wounds. He kept looking at his hands until suddenly, violently, three razor-sharp claws burst from the backs of them, one set per hand, and the horrible truth dawned. He ran, ran like hell itself was on his heels, he wanted to get away from the pain, the suffering, the torture, the animal- _

It had all been a lie, a way to test the extent of their control over him, giving him the illusion that he'd escaped when all they'd done was release him out into the compound again, this time to face a tiger. They showed him a light at the end of the tunnel and then showed him it was just a freight train coming for him.

_The memory shifted, tilted nauseatingly, so that they stood on a street at night in what looked like a residential neighborhood. Houses lined the street, all dark save a few porch lights twinkling. There was screaming in the distance, helpless pleading, and they looked at each other wondering what was happening in this otherwise peaceful place._

_There was an animal growling, snarling, and suddenly a man burst out of the shadows of some nearby bushes. His naked body was coated in blood, his hair wild and tangled, and he turned as if he saw them._

_It was Logan. He moved with deadly confidence, a true predator, eyes utterly blank but for sheer feral bloodlust. _

_The real Logan collapsed to the ground on his knees as recollection hit him, tried to tear him apart. This had been the final test of the brainwashing. They'd already seen that he could kill wild animals. They'd been no match for him, nor had they been expected to. The true test had brought him here to Roanoke, a quiet midwestern town, where he was set loose to massacre the entire population, and he did it with deadly precision. Men, women and children, no one survived against a creature that knew to keep to the shadows, make the kills quickly so that no alarm would be raised, and even if one or two got away they were no match for someone who could track them like a bloodhound. He did it because he'd been ordered to, programmed to. He'd killed innocent-_

Teva knelt with him, held him close. Everything else he'd been able to handle but she could feel this breaking him inside, cutting him up where no healing factor could go. She wished desperately that none of this had ever happened, that he'd remained in the dark about his past so that he didn't have to endure knowing that he'd been essentially created to hunt and kill his own kind because, truly, that was the aim of the Weapon X program: create the ultimate killing machine to do the dirty work of shady governments and whoever else could pay the high price for efficiency. The plan had been to sell him to the highest bidder and wipe his mind after every job to ensure he was never compromised. Now there were the deaths of hundreds on his head that he'd never known about and Teva could feel him pulling away, giving up because this, this was just too much.

She pulled him in, cradled his head against her chest and bowed hers over him, stroking his hair. The scene flickered around them as it became unstable with Logan's lack of will to go on. She didn't think any less of him for it because it was such a cruel blow to take. She just wished there was something she could do to ease the passing.

Her head rose as light flared off in the distance. What was that? They were still on that blood-soaked street and the light was out of place in the night sky. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore it but now she could feel it, pulsing, pulling. She touched it and her eyes opened again. Without speaking she took them there and touched Logan's face, wordlessly bidding him to open his eyes and look.

_They were back at the Weapon X compound. The tiger lay on the ground, gutted, its ribs jutting out at ugly angles, its mouth still open in savage promise. Guards came out with their prods to herd him back inside and they failed, dying out in the snow like the tiger had. And now what he'd done in the false memory of escape happened for real - he hunted down those who'd hurt him, this time in absolute coherence and cold blood, vengeance the only thing on his mind. No one survived, because not a single person there had done a thing to help him. The last one died gurgling, choking, and as he headed back for the exit he heard something._

_Logan_ _lifted his head at a sound. Who had survived? He followed the noise, head down as he stumbled to the source. There were wolves still penned up, ones that hadn't been chosen to face him in some sick and deadly game, and they watched him with wary eyes, knew him for a predator like they were. Without hesitation he extracted his claws and cut the latch to free them, watched them bound out into the snow that fell heavily, making the world seem made of white, a blank canvas. It was a pure color and the wolves blended with it, became the wraiths they were meant to be as they took to their freedom. And he followed._

Teva heard a whisper, felt a kiss on her forehead. "Thank you."

* * *

Bright light pierced her eyelids, made her groan and try to cover her face with her hands. She found one trapped, whimpered and tried to get it free, panicked a little until she felt something move to let it go. Where the hell was she?

Slowly Teva's eyes opened to a room that wasn't actually all that bright, but after having her eyes closed for God knew how long, it felt like the surface of the sun trying to stab her retinas. Sight resolved finally and she found herself in her own bed rather than the medbay. It had been the blankets trapping her arm because she found herself alone. And there was that panic again. Why was she in the room she shared with Logan? And where was _he_?

The bathroom door opened and a cloud of steam rolled out along with the man wearing not a stitch of clothing. "Hey," he said quietly when he saw she was awake. Wordlessly she held her arms out to him, could feel tears burning her eyes and nose and it only became worse when he came to her, gathered her carefully into his arms. He smelled clean, his skin still slightly damp from the shower as she pressed her lips to his neck. "It's okay, sweetheart," he said, stroking her back.

"I'm no dead, am I?" she asked, sniffling. She heard him laugh softly. "It's no a stupid question, you insensitive arse."

He sat back on the bed, completely immodest in his nudity. "I think if you were dead ya wouldn't still look like you'd gotten in a fight with an angry cat."

Teva touched her face, found healing cuts beneath her fingers. "You saying I'm ugly?" she asked, squinting at him.

"Never that." He was definitely trying to keep a straight face.

"How long has it been?" She struggled to sit up herself, felt pain in her left leg but not nearly so bad as she remembered it being before she'd gone into Logan's head. That alone made the panic rise again; had she been in a coma or something? Was that why her leg didn't hurt as much?

He made a shushing sound to soothe her. "Just a couple days. Turns out we weren't in there but a few hours."

"What? A few _hours_?"

"It felt like an eternity. Chuck said it's 'cause time runs different on the astral plane." He hadn't stopped touching her since he'd sat down next to her, stroking her hair or her back, carefully touching her arms or her face, rubbing his thumbs over the palms of her hands. "Ya been out this whole time. I woke up yesterday."

She let that sink in, breathed deeply and slowly. "I thought we'd reached the end, I thought I was losing you." She looked up, saw him grimace at the painful memories. "What changed?"

Logan got up and went to the dresser, pulling out a loose pair of pants. "The last bit," he said, pulling the pants on. "The last memory. Of freein' the wolves." He stood there, looking down at his hands before he looked back at her. "Ya gave me a reason to hang on."

"I almost did'nae see it. I did'nae want to lose it once I did." She shifted again before throwing back the covers, scooting to the edge of the bed despite the protesting pain. She wore only an oversized T-shirt and a pair of underwear.

"What the hell are ya doin', woman?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her. She loved that expression. She was damned glad to see it again.

"The hell does it look like I'm doing, bub?" She pushed herself up onto her feet and would have fallen flat on her face if he hadn't moved quickly enough to catch her.

"Looks like yer makin' it worse for yerself."

"Just shut up and hold me, Logan." She hooked her arms around his neck, felt him slide his around her back. "How are you holding up?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Still dealin' with it. Got the headache from hell, first one I can remember havin' that didn't come after gettin' my ass handed to me by the Hulk or Juggernaut. Not that that happens very often, just sayin'."

"Oh, to be sure," she said, humoring him.

"Hush. You asked how I'm doin'." She touched his hair, still damp as she sunk her fingers into it. He closed his eyes against the familiar touch and a slight, quiet growl rumbled from his chest. "Still angry with ya for pullin' such a stupid stunt an' comin' in after me -"

"Logan, I -"

The growl got stronger, now less contented and more fierce. "But I know why ya did it. Ya saw somethin' good in me an' ya didn't want all those bad things to drive me into the grave." The growl stopped and he sighed, shaking his head to detach her fingers. "Weren't for you, darlin', they'd've had me, not just my body but my soul."

"You know I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"I know. Doesn't change how grateful I am." His arms tightened around her. "Not a lot o' people have seen a lot in me that's worth a damn."

"Lot of people have'nae crawled into your head and made themselves a little burrow. Logan, the people around you see it, too, maybe no as clearly as me but they see it."

"Guess I'm not doin' my job makin' people think I'm an ornery bastard, then."

Teva snorted at him, couldn't help smiling. "Oh, you're still an ornery bastard, but you're an ornery bastard with friends. Family. Any one of them would go to the wall for you." She kissed him, gently, body memory waking up fully. "Ah, hell," she said, shivering. "I've just been through hell, I have'nae showered in three days, I have an injured leg and still all I can think of is rolling around on the floor with you."

"I'm just that good, baby." He grinned at her. "Hank wants ya down in the medbay so he can get a look at yer leg."

"Mmmm, but I wanna stay here," she said, pressing her hips into his and pouting at him.

He laughed, and it was the best sound she'd heard in a what felt like an eternity. "Damn, woman, I didn't know I was that addictive. You are gettin' a bath and then yer goin' down so the doc can check ya out. No whinin' and no excuses."

She kept whining, all the way into the bathroom, until he promised to wash her hair for her. No way would she ever turn that down.

* * *

Logan looked at the scans of Teva's body as Hank took them, the furry blue doctor making noises of interest and surprise. "What is it?" he asked.

Hank glanced at his shorter teammate before turning his gaze back to the computer screen. "It appears that what you told me about Teva mimicking your healing factor holds in the real world as well. There has been accelerated healing of her leg though not on par with yours, the regeneration rate seems such that it'll take weeks rather than months for the injury to fully heal."

The shorter mutant nodded. It made sense. "She got cut up some in the astral plane and I watched the wounds heal but it seemed like, I dunno, a weak copy or somethin'. Like if ya fax somethin' enough times it don't look like the original anymore."

"A reasonable analogy, my Canadian friend." Hank continued looking at the scans, pointing as various views of Teva's leg came up. The site of the wound was done in shades of red to indicate injury among the healthy tissues illuminated in blue. "You can see here the muscle and nerve damage is repairing itself, when I took the scans a week ago after surgery the red portion was much more extensive and it was darker to show just _how_ extensive it was." He tapped the screen and brought up the previous scan and, indeed, the difference was striking.

The small bed that Teva lay on inside the scanner slid out as the scan finished. "So what's the verdict, Hank?" She sat up with only a small struggle, her left hand pressed to her injured leg to ease the pain she still felt.

"Your theory of mimicking Logan's healing factor bears out but I'm afraid it won't completely repair the leg." McCoy beckoned her closer and she grabbed the cane he'd given her to aid her in walking so that she could see what was on his monitors. "I explained to you that there was nerve damage. This cluster here," he said, pointing with one claw, "was completely destroyed, and while the healing factor is taking care of damage that had not finished taking care of itself, the muscle fibers and tendons that had begun to knit together prior to that will not be affected by the change in your, ah, status."

Logan put his hand on the small of her back, offering silent support. He felt how tense she held herself, both to offset the pain and because she was expecting bad news, anticipating it and hoping to not be too disappointed. She moved into his touch, bumping her hip up against his.

"So basically, any damage that already healed is permanent, but anything that was still in the process will get the benefit of the healing factor." When the doctor nodded she sighed, sagging a little against Logan. He kissed her temple.

"Your prognosis is considerably better now so don't lose hope."

"But there's still the chance I will'nae get back full use of the leg, even with rehabilitation."

"Well, yes, that is a possibility. I wouldn't lie to you and say otherwise."

Teva nodded. "I know, Hank, thank you. Is the mimic permanent?"

"Meaning will you always have the ability you copy?" Hank shrugged. "As it has only been a few days since we discovered this power, it's difficult and too early to say. I am sure that Charles will want to explore it, to see what the full capabilities and limits are." He patted her arm. "For now you're still healing more rapidly than you would otherwise so I feel it safe to say that you can hang onto the power for at least a little while."

He gave her more painkillers and sent them on their way.

"Back to our room?" Logan asked, slowing his stride so that Teva could keep up. She was muttering curses under her breath at the cane and her uneven gait because of it and her leg. When he offered his arm she glared at him. "Geez, sorry, was just tryin' to help."

Teva sighed heavily and stopped, leaning her shoulder up against the wall as she closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Logan, dinnae ..." She devolved into Gaelic curses as her face screwed up and she sucked in air.

Watching her like this had its own related pain aside from what he could feel over the link, in his heart where he just hurt for her, for whatever he'd caused her by letting her into his life. It almost hadn't been a conscious decision, his heart deciding it wanted her, needed her even with everything he'd been through; his brain hadn't jumped in until it was too late to remind him that his life was dark and dangerous for anyone that wasn't him, that he was better off alone without inflicting his own brand of sadness and torture on someone else. By and large he'd already sort of ignored that voice just by being an X-Man, accepting his teammates as friends and family. But another voice was telling him, _This is what happens when you fall in love, you drag them down to your level. You get them killed, and sometimes you even do the killing._

He reached out and touched her, unable to do anything else, his heart so far gone it almost didn't matter anymore and he had to comfort her for pain he'd caused. He touched her arm then drew her in against him when she turned to him, seeking relief. "Pain that bad?"

She nodded. "It's like a slo-mo of your healing factor in excrutiating detail added to everything else."

"I'm sorry, baby, sorry I got ya into trouble."

Her fist thumped on his chest, hard. "Damn you! D'ye never realize that I love ye and every bloody time ye apologize for somehow damning me to a life o' tragedy and despair you're just insulting me?" She pushed him away, scooted awkwardly away along the wall. "_Faigh muin_, if ye dinnae stop this, Logan ... I cannae do this. I cannae keep telling ye what ye dinnae seem to want to hear." Her voice shook with grief and anger and she slapped at him when he tried to touch her again.

"No. I'm done. You - I need to focus on not falling flat on my face, on getting better and I cannae do that if all ye do is tear down what I've tried to build with ye and question this, question _us_. Gods above I have _seen_ what's in your head, in your mind, I have walked through hell and back for ye because I _love_ ye, not some misplaced sense of obligation or masochism or whatever the fuck ye think it is."

He never seemed to learn that she knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling, and if those things were strong she was going to pick up on them even more. He didn't have to say a blessed word for her to be able to react to it. "I'm strugglin' with this, Teva, with finally gettin' every memory back I thought I wanted to know. A lot of it's shit that's cuttin' me up inside to the point I don't even know if I'm the same man I was two weeks ago. I may not even be the guy ya fell in love with, the one who fell in love with you."

Logan could feel her eyes on him, hear her harsh breathing as she fought to stay in control of herself, of her emotions, but between the two of them she was losing. "Maybe it's better we end this now 'fore it gets any worse." Something in him knew it was the wrong thing to say, the wrong thing to do, but he was better off alone. _She_ was better off without him in her life.

Teva made a choked, pained sound and when he met her eyes he could see everything that he already felt from her: betrayal, rage, loss of direction. "Ye bastard. Ye son of a bitch."

He felt something snap inside of him, not his beast but something in his heart, in his mind. It made him stagger. "What was that?"

"Me shutting off the link. I cannae sever it but I can shut it the fuck off if I need to." Her hand lifted, her finger pointing towards the elevator down the corridor. "Walk away, Logan. Tuck your tail between your legs like the fucking coward ye are and walk away or I will by God make ye regret it."

For the first time in nearly a year she was gone, out of his head and the loss was an ache, a void. He drew on that pain, that darkness. "You're better off, Teva."

He turned away and ignored the part of him that wanted to turn around, crawl back and beg forgiveness. The sound of her crying as she broke chased on his heels.


	11. Chapter 11

It was difficult to see through the haze of tears and the pure rage. Teva slammed open the door to the bedroom she'd vacated not three weeks ago, the door bouncing back off the wall she'd flung it so hard. Her hand came up to catch it before it hit her in the face. She didn't bother to close it as she went to the closet to get a set of sheets for the full size bed in the room, the dark blue that Xavier provided unless and until the occupant decided to change the decor.

The room didn't look all that much different from when she'd lived in it, her possessions being few enough that most of them had been either in the closet or in the dresser.

With jerky, barely-controlled movements she made the bed, or at least she tried to, struggling against pain and her limited mobility. After the third time the fitted sheet snapped back on her she collapsed on the floor, heedless of the awkward position of her leg and unable to stop the grief and pain from dragging sobs out of her, ragged but quiet. Her world had slipped out from beneath her again, no less agonizing than when she'd been forced to leave Antiheroine, to give up what she'd thrown herself body and soul into. Logan had been more than a lover, he'd been a lifeline to bring her to the school, to convince her that her life hadn't ended in that hotel room in New Mexico. He'd brought her to a place where she found purpose again and then he'd become her partner.

So absorbed in her grief was she that when hands touched her, arms wrapped around her and gathered her in, she reacted only by grabbing hold of clothing and burrowing in against them. She was barely aware of someone murmuring in French, of a shirt that smelled like clove cigarettes and light, spicy cologne as she emptied herself, sobbed until she felt both light and heavy at the same time, reminiscent of how she'd felt when she'd woken from surgery.

Those arms around her picked her up and carried her into the bathroom, set her down on the closed lid of the toilet. Remy filled the cup on the sink with water and handed it to her before perching on the edge of the bathtub.

"How'd ye ken?" Teva asked, sipping carefully at the water. Her throat felt raw and abused, her voice giving evidence of that.

Remy smiled crookedly. "I'd say it be t'ieves intuition, but really I jus' be walkin' past the room."

The damaged muscles in her leg twitched, seized up, dragging a low groan from her. "Could ye grab the bottle of pills on the dresser?" Sitting on the cold hardwood floor, crumpled like a ragdoll, hadn't been the best idea.

He obliged without comment, handing her the bottle when he returned and resumed his seat.

Teva shook two blue pulls into her hand and downed them with the rest of the water, tilting her head back to get all of it. "God. God_dammit_." She felt herself shaking.

"I'd ask where the short one be but the way ya be cryin' like that tell me all I need to know." He touched her right leg, the one closest to him, his hand covering her knee. "He actin' like _un salaud_ again?"

"How much d'ye ken about what happened?" Her hand covered his, taking comfort in his touch.

"'Nuff to know he got a head full o' the last century an' change."

She stood, giving his hand a squeeze before letting go to run water in the sink and wash her face. Her reflection in the mirror showed that her skin was pale, the faint freckles she almost never noticed standing out in sharp clarity along the bridge of her nose and her high cheekbones. Her eyes were red-rimmed and a little puffy, she'd never been a been one of those girls who could cry and still be pretty. "L-" She couldn't even said his name. "He decided I was better off without him. I apparently did'nae get a say in that, he came to that conclusion all by his lonesome."

Remy made a clucking noise with his tongue. "An' ya let 'im go?"

Teva turned, leaning against the sink and gripping the edge of it with her hands. "He told me he was'nae the man I'd fallen in love with, and he was right. God help me, he was right, I did'nae fall in love with a man who'd give up so easily." She'd called him a coward and it was still true. "If he wants to turn his back on this, on him and me, I'm no going to stop him if all it'll get me is more pain. If I kept at him he'd just pull away until there was nothing left. He'd tear me apart just as surely as he's doing to himself right now. I cannae fight against that."

"I see y' point, _chere_. Wish I could say otherwise, say that if ya jus' gave 'im a chance it'd be alright, but I been aroun' the Wolverine long enough I know how self-destructive he be." He offered her a sad smile. _"Je suis desole, ma petite._ Ya do what ya need to do, to get yourself better. Tryin' to pull that one back t'gether be almos' like suicide if he decides he ain't gonna cooperate."

He got to his feet and came to her, cupping her jaw in his hand as he leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Any'ting ya need, Teva, all ya gotta do is ask."

"Thank ye, Remy." She gave him a small, tremulous smile. "Help me back into the bedroom so I can make the damn bed?"

Remy chuckled and offered his arm, helped her limp back out, and together they got the bed set to rights.

"Ya gonna get y' t'ings from his room?"

Teva nodded, sitting down on the bed. "Aye, but not right now. I cannae chance running into him. I want verrae much to claw his eyes out even if they _would_ grow back."

Remy chuckled. "Keep that in min', girl, it'll help ya pas' the tears."

"Ah, _faigh muin_, all my guitars are in his room." She let out a ragged, frustrated sound. "I want to play something angry and loud." She laughed, then, a little crazily. "Then again, I can feel the percocet kicking in, so maybe that is'nae the best idea at the moment."

"When ya go, I'll help ya. Got a strong back, or so _mon pere_ tol' me."

"I'll need someone to carry my amplifier at the verrae least, I can handle the guitars once they're in their cases." She blinked up at him. "The room is spinning and I'm sitting down. This is interesting."

Remy snorted at her and pulled down the blankets on the bed. "How 'bout ya take a nap, _chere_? I'll come get ya for dinner."

Her body made the decision for her, falling back on the bed, and she didn't even care so much at the protesting pull on her leg as she curled up, made herself as comfortable as possible. Her breath hitched at the generic smell of the sheets but she shoved it down. "Okay." She grabbed his hand when he pulled away after tucking her in. "Remy. I love ye. You're sweet."

He laughed softly and touched her head, stroked her hair. "_Rêves doux_, Teva."

* * *

Teva was like a ghost floating down the halls of the institute, a ghost with a limp and an arsenal of curses in four different languages, a ghost who felt and thought things she'd rather not. The only way she slept at all was with the painkillers and even then it was fitful, her dreams dark and frightening, full of things chasing her, trying to hurt her, even here she was injured so that the darkness gained on her and pulled her down. She expected to wake up bruised and bleeding but she never did.

Remy had indeed helped her move her things, requiring only a few short trips between rooms. They'd never run into Logan and it seemed to Teva that it was entirely possible he hadn't gone back there yet, the bed was still in the same state she'd left it in what seemed like years ago but was only a matter of a couple days. Where he'd gone, no one knew, and she wasn't about to reopen the link to find out. It wasn't that important to her.

She worked out a rehab schedule with Hank that made her want to weep in frustration at how little use she had of her leg but it gave her something to focus on beside the ache in her middle. Charles snagged her most days afterwards to get the full story on what had occurred on the astral plane and then he offered to counsel her, an offer she gladly accepted because otherwise she'd go mad. Her friends rallied around her, never asking where Logan was or what she thought would happen unless she mentioned it first, and she was glad that none of them seemed torn between the two of them.

Her days became completely filled with all those things and a resurgence in her muse that led her to contact Warren Worthington; he was indeed excited to hear this and more than willing to let her come into his studio so that he could hear the music she was writing. It poured out of her and each time she thought the well was dry something else came out, proved her wrong, proved she still had the knack and the drive to do what she loved and had thought lost. Suddenly she was in talks to find a backup group, a drummer and a bassist and things were moving quicker than she had time to catch.

A month after the blowup with Logan, a month of knowing he was around but avoiding her, Ororo came to meet her after a physical therapy session, the African beauty's mood pensive.

"I wanted to tell you before the gossip got to you." She matched her longer strides with Teva's shorter ones as they headed for the elevator from the underground levels. "Logan has left for Japan. He does not seem to know when he will return." There'd been the slightest hesitation on the word _when_, like she'd almost said _if_.

Teva nodded, taking that information in, not saying anything until they were inside the elevator. "He spent a lot of time there, in the past. Maybe he'll find some kind of peace there."

Ororo gave a small smile. "You are a kind soul, Teva, to wish him well."

The Scot shrugged. "I did'nae make him happy enough. With everything he's been through he deserves something that's going to do what I could'nae." She snorted and shook her head ruefully. "Dinnae think I'm so magnanimous, 'Roro, that I dinnae still want to bash his head in. He's a right bastard and he hurt me, but damn me if I dinnae still love him enough to want him to be happy. Even if that is'nae with me."

Ororo touched her arm briefly before the doors opened. "Are we still on for watching more episodes of M*A*S*H tonight in the rec room?"

Teva smiled. "Of course, I would'nae miss it for the world. Alan Alda makes everything better."

"That and copious amounts of Chocolate Caramel Crunch ice cream." Ororo leaned in and kissed her on the cheek in parting. "See you tonight."

"Later."

The door to Xavier's office was open as it always was while he waited for her to arrive. She shut it and came over to the windowseat the Professor was sitting next to. "Afternoon, Charles," she greeted him.

He smiled up at her, gesturing for her to have a seat. The bay window had a cushioned seat that gave a wonderful view on the lush outside gardens in back of the school, always well-tended by the weather witch. "Did Ororo speak with you regarding Logan?"

"Yeah, she told me. Did'nae want the rumor mill grinding it's inevitable way towards me." She saw the question on his face. "I told her I wish him well. If I cannae give him what he needs, maybe he'll find it elsewhere."

Charles nodded, satisfied. "He is still deeply troubled over the events of his past and he feels -"

Teva held up a hand to stop him. "I appreciate wanting to fill me in but really, I dinnae need to know. If he'd wanted me to know he'd have told me, and as that did'nae happen ..." Her hand tightened on the cane she still held. "He's out of my life, Charles, for better or worse. I shut off the link and it'll remain that way until he's ready for us to sever it." It would require both of them to be willing, she'd discovered, otherwise she risked damaging Logan's already scarred psyche. She could maintain the lock without more than a passing thought.

"I understand." He folded his hands in his lap over the blanket that covered his legs, a cheery plaid in the MacTaggert tartan, a gift from a dear friend. "You seem to be gaining mobility," he said with no trace of jealousy. "I assume your sessions with Henry are proving fruitful."

"Aye, they are." They'd discovered in the first week that her ability to mimic allowed her to keep powers for a short period of time, the strength and duration of the mimic directly proportionate to her emotional connection to the 'lender'. Remy had volunteered to be the first guinea pig and she'd been able to hold onto his kinetic powers for the better part of a week, her use of it getting weaker as time passed. Their relationship somehow managed to give her more control over the power. One of the younger generation, Neal Shaara, had agreed to let her try it on him. The borrowed plasma bursts were gone within two days and she'd had little control over them. "Ah, I just told you I did'nae want to discuss Logan and here I am about to ask a question regarding him."

Charles smiled. "I'll do my best to answer."

"It's actually about his healing factor and my possession of it. I was musing that I had'nae lost the ability even though I cut off the psychic link and I was wondering if, due to the ... extreme emotional connection he and I had at the time, along with the fact it was my first mimic, if the 'loan' is permanent."

He nodded, his brow furrowing in contemplation. "That could very well be the case. Henry noticed that all of your cells, not just the ones related to your injured leg, were altered, constantly regenerating the way that Logan's do though on a greatly reduced scale. Your ability to utilize the healing factor has not diminished in the way your borrowing of Remy's powers faded after a week." He nodded again, this time affirming his own words. "It is what allows Logan to age more slowly, which means that your own aging process will decelerate if you retain the power."

"The women in my family always did look younger than our years." A smile played on Teva's lips. "I suppose only time will bear out the truth of my question."

"Time bears out the truth of all questions." He sighed quietly. "Aside from your rehabilitation, how are you doing? How are your recording sessions progressing?"

Teva shifted in her seat, getting more comfortable. "There's still a lot of technical stuff to work out, and I think we might have to replace the drummer, he's a bit of a pothead. Not that I care but, well, it does'nae seem as if _he_ cares about anything much. Other than that, though, it's coming together remarkably smoothly."

"And it appears you enjoy being back in the studio," Charles said, smiling.

"Oh, it has its good points and its bad. I'm just glad that Warren is giving me so much freedom to do what I want without micro-managing the whole process." She fiddled with the end of her braid, an unconscious gesture she did while thinking. "And since he owns the label he can let me do whatever I want, he will'nae push me in a direction I dinnae feel comfortable taking. God, I hated that part of working for a record label. You sign a contract and you may as well give them your firstborn as well as your second for all they act like you owe them for producing your albums."

Xavier patted her leg. "It truly is serendipitous that Warren owns Archangel Records. It is also good to have a friend watching out for you."

Teva smirked a little. "I think in some ways he's been circling me ever since Logan and I split, he'd pursued me a bit while I was still with Antiheroine." She laughed softly, shrugging. "But he is'nae pushing so I cannae tell him to back off without looking silly."

"He's a good man for all his charming ways." Charles steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "What about your nightmares, are those still occurring?"

She frowned at the change of topic. "Some. Not as badly as the first week out but I think I may be exhausting myself to the point they are'nae as big of a problem. Since I'm no struggling to fall asleep anymore they seem to be happening less frequently and with much less severity."

"I am glad you are doing well, Teva. You are a remarkable woman for all that you've survived."

"I'm just glad I found this place, the home you've made." Her breath hitched a moment. "Back when I was with my band I never dreamed a place like this existed, I just assumed that if I were to ever be outed I'd be completely on my own. At least I had money put away for any contingency but ..." Her breath stuttered again and she clasped his hand when he offered it. "Money does'nae mean so much when ye dinnae have friends or family to share it with."

"And now you have all those things in abundance."

"Aye." She sniffled, wiping at her nose with her long sleeve. "I've cried so much the last month it's a wonder I've any tears left."

Charles squeezed her hand. "I heard a saying once: 'What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.' A bit trite, a bit cliche, but true all the same. Be more worried if you need to cry and find that the tears won't come at all."

Teva laughed. "That's an odd thing to hope for, y'ken."

"That it is, but you know as an empath that all emotions are valid and must be felt and acknowledged if we are to be truly human. It's what separates us from the other animals that roam this earth." His expression turned a little grim. "I believe I'm going to become maudlin if we keep discussing that." He patted her hand and let her go. "You look tired, Teva, perhaps you should see about a nap."

"All I do is nap in my free time, it seems, but I'm doing so much it's hard not to be tired."

"Just be careful not to spread yourself too thin in your endeavors and I think you'll come out the other end just fine."

* * *

French glossary

_un salaud_ - bastard

_je suis desole, ma petite_ - I'm sorry, my little one

_reve doux_ - sweet dreams


	12. Chapter 12

Every time he returned to Japan, the place was eerily the same. Things smelled the same, looked the same. It was like one big, continuous sense of _deja vu_, made stronger now for the fact he could remember being here just after World War II. It was distinct, now, why he could remember what Hiroshima looked like before the atomic bomb had dropped, whereas before it had been mere glimpses.

Coming back to Japan was like coming home for Logan. In so many ways he'd adopted it as such, no matter how much tragedy had befallen him here, he kept coming back because something about the land, the culture, the people, drew him time and again. He still flew out every year to visit Mariko's grave, to place flowers there in her honor, but that date was months away. He tried to ignore the real reason he'd come here, what he'd been fleeing from.

It hadn't been terribly difficult to avoid Teva for the month he'd remained at the Institute. He knew when she was nearby just from how strong her scent was, could easily slip in or out of a room without her noticing, though some of the others gave him raised eyebrows and exasperated looks if they happened to catch him. He'd felt lost until he'd decided to leave for Japan.

He hadn't gone back to his room, the room that had become theirs, until she'd removed her things. He just didn't want to make her deal with seeing him, knew she was still raw and hurting from so many different things. He still had the capacity for compassion for all he'd been callous in leaving her, and avoiding her also meant he didn't have to face her. And once she'd vacated, he stripped the sheets off the bed and washed them until her scent was gone, opened the window to let cold winter air scour the room until he couldn't smell her anymore. No use in making the transition harder than it had to be.

Some part of him was aware how much of a complete asshole he'd been. She'd gone through so much just to help him, just because she loved him and didn't want to see him suffer, and he'd as good as spit on that. He rationalized it away with more rhetoric about how she was better off, she'd be happier not being dragged down by the full accounting of his memories being restored, safer not sharing his bed now that his nightmares had gotten more violent. The bed out in the boathouse was trashed from his claws, extending reflexively to fight off terrible dreams that were no longer flashes but full-on memories, like watching a movie with all the frames instead of just a few.

He'd taken to sleeping on the floor in his room to avoid destroying that bed. He'd slept in worse conditions before. The first few nights had been hard even beyond the nightmares, several times he'd woken up and reached for a woman that wasn't there, a woman who had comforted him for months now. The loss of her intensified the turmoil inside of him, made it almost unbearable and more than once he'd found himself in the middle of the night outside the bedroom she now occupied, his hand on the door. He'd dozed with his back against it a few times, always gone before anyone found him, finding proximity to her eased some of the ghosts.

That was all he allowed himself, the only weakness he allowed through. Hearing her soft breaths, the quiet murmurs she sometimes made in the middle of the night ... it was hard to let her go, knowing what his presence in her life had caused her. It was hard to let her go knowing that she'd seen everything and never flinched away, never told him he was on his own, and it was all because she loved him.

He kept an eye on her throughout that month, kept updated on what she was doing with Hank. Somehow she'd managed to hang onto his healing factor and he was thankful that he'd done at least a little to help her recover. Regenerating cells did nothing for a broken heart, however, for either of them.

Logan felt the loss of her keenly for all he'd done it to save her. He was a man who felt everything deeply even if that wasn't obvious to those around him, the assumption being that because he acted gruff and aloof he couldn't possibly harbor such intense emotions that weren't anger or something equally dark and negative. He loved as strongly as he ever hated, the capacity for one increasing that of the other.

Japan had the same kind of duality for him, the site of both the best and worst experiences of his life, all of them shaping him into the man he was now. Now at least he had the tools necessary to understand why certain parts of the archipelago of islands had the ability to send him straight into melancholy, sometimes simultaneous with joy. His first stop was the site of the former village of Jasmine Falls, former because it had long since disappeared, victim to urbanization only in that it had become depopulated and the land had begun to reclaim itself. There were signs of semi-recent habitation in the form of crude homes, little more than shanties that had lost their roofs to the elements, but he caught no scents of any recent occupants.

Nothing but the scent of jasmine the village had been named for and the cherry trees that still grew there. Instinctively he knew which one Itsu and their baby lay buried beneath; it still bore the scars of his claws, faint where the tree had healed itself, though the land itself gave no indication of any graves ever having been dug. The earth was always so much more proficient at erasing whatever man did to it, at reclaiming itself.

It was late spring in Japan and the _sakura, _the decorative variety of trees, were awash in pink and white blossoms. Logan touched them with rough but reverent hands, still remembered the texture of the petals, many of which had already begun to fall and were scattered over the final resting place of his wife and child. He knelt at the foot of the grave, head bowed and eyes closed, for a long while in complete silence save for the sighing of the trees in the gentle breeze. The tickle of petals floating down across his face finally made him open his eyes, brought a small smile to lips that hadn't smiled much in the recent past.

He wasn't a man given to flights of fantasy but part of him imagined that it was Itsu making her presence known, letting him know she still thought fondly of him. Neither was the symbolism the Japanese placed on cherry blossoms lost on him: the transience of the trees blooming period, happening quickly and lasting but a short time, had turned them into a symbol for the fragility of life. They were a tree seen more often closer to cities, planted in honor of emperors and by those with the money to cultivate them properly. Here, however, allowed to grow wild (though they'd been well-cared for) there was a savage beauty that appealed to him more than the carefully pruned and guided blooms of civilization.

"I'm sorry I forgot about you," he said quietly, placing one hand against the ground. The grass felt cool against his skin, hidden in shade as it was. "About you and the baby, our baby. I don't even know if it was a boy or a girl but I've been wondering which of us they'd take after and I can't help but wish they'd have looked like you, had your temperament." He didn't even realize he was speaking Japanese, he knew it as well as he knew his native tongue. "I feel like I haven't done you honor because I didn't remember you and it just sounds like an excuse when I think about how messed up my mind has been."

His fingers dug into the ground, reaching dirt and giving him something substantial to hold onto. "I'm sorry I failed you, Itsu-chan. I gave in to the beast inside of me, I couldn't control it the way I thought I could and I know it had something to do with why you were murdered. If I could track down the one who killed you, I would, but all I can do is try to live a life that would make you proud of me."

_Then why did you leave Teva?_ a traitorous voice in the back of his mind asked. _Honoring your dead wife means fuck all when you walked away from a woman who gave herself, body and soul, to save your worthless hide._

A low growl trickled from his lips before he could stop it. "Dammit," he said, switching back to English as if Itsu's spirit somehow wouldn't understand him then. He stood and touched the cherry tree, leaned his forehead against the rough bark. "I'm sorry," he whispered, not sure who exactly he was apologizing to. "Seems all I do is fail everyone, everything I touch I lose even if I don't intend for that to happen. Maybe there's a reason they chose me for Weapon X, maybe they saw what I couldn't see even then, was too damn blind to admit to myself."

The ache in his chest made him want to drop to his knees, give in to the despair that had been eating at the edges of his sanity for as long as he could remember. In the past it had been easier to ignore, to push back, because he hadn't remembered most of his life. Now, knowing the kind of man he'd been, the life he'd led and the things he'd done, it was harder to ignore that. Harder to ignore the part of him that sometimes whispered thoughts of letting go once and for all, finding some way to end his life permanently.

_Tuck your tail between your legs like the fucking coward ye are ... _Teva's voice broke into his inner monologue, the last thing she'd said to him fitting in quite well with his current train of thought. She'd only meant that he was a coward for running away from their relationship and he wondered now if she'd seen that desire inside of him, the one that only came out at the worst possible times in his life. She'd never mentioned it but he knew there were a lot of things she'd left alone for unknown reasons and this may have been one of them.

He "touched" the place in his mind where their shared link still resided, a door now chained and padlocked shut, no cracks to allow any part of her through whereas before there'd been a constant sense of her just out of reach. Now there was nothing and the memories he'd regained seemed all the louder and harder to sort through without her to act as a buffer. During the 24 hours he'd been conscious before she woke up it had been easier to deal with them because even then she'd been containing them for him, giving him a way to take them at his own pace without being overwhelmed. He hadn't even gotten to the elevator after leaving her before the memories clamored for his attention, giving him the mother of all headaches, and only hours of meditation had given him any kind of respite from the chaos.

Now he sat down with his back to the cherry tree, falling automatically into the correct posture, eyes sliding closed as he drew air in through his nose and then exhaled from his mouth. The need he still felt for Teva squeezed his chest painfully, not entirely a need of the body but also of the soul. As much as she'd given herself over to him, he'd done the same without intending to. He always tried to keep some of himself back, mainly an attempt at not allowing his beast to fully get involved, but with her it had been a true mating of all aspects of both of them. She'd accepted the animal and he'd accepted having her burrowed inside of him. He'd done much the same with Silver Fox and even Itsu for all he'd been both different and similar back then, though with Mariko they'd never been intimate, had never crossed the line where his feral side decided to mark its claim.

Inhale for a count of four, exhale on a count of seven. Push it all back, away, try to shove it down and lock it up for all the good it would do him. It always came back in dreams, in nightmares, vivid and soaked in blood. Every single one of his women had bled because of him whether he'd physically done the cutting or not.

He felt his hands curling into fists and forced them to relax, placing them palm down on his knees. He rolled his head and heard the popping of his vertebrae, an audible release of tension, and then he was sinking beyond physical sensation, into the tiny bit of calm he clung to like a lifeline.

When his eyes opened again it was dusk and he had a long walk to get back to the car he'd rented. He wished very much that he hadn't come here alone, that now he could slip his hand into Teva's and feel her next to him, smell her and know that she was with him, but as he had been for much of his life, he was alone again.

* * *

Nikka whiskey burned like fire down the back of his throat, one shot after another of one of the few liquors that ever managed to give him a buzz, however fleeting. His memories were beginning to choke him, to steal the very air from his lungs so that he couldn't sleep, couldn't do anything but try to find a way to drown them out. In some ways it was much like he'd been before the Weapon X procedure when he'd been taking drugs and drinking every night, partly to test the limits of his healing factor and partly to turn his life into a haze, to shut off the pain and the thoughts.

Every waking moment, and even the scant few hours of sleep he managed to snatch, were haunted by the things he'd done, the people he'd killed because he'd been ordered to. He imagined it was their ghosts coming to get their revenge and he deserved it a million times over but there was no way to repay them, to seek their forgiveness. They weren't real, only existed in his mind, but that was real enough for him. His soul was a battleground the way his mind had been.

He was on his second bottle of whiskey when a scent he hadn't smelled in years made him look over, a lazy smile appearing on his face.

"Hey Yukio," he said in Japanese.

"You've been here a week and you haven't yet sought me out." The short-haired Japanese woman pouted at him, raising a hand to flag the barkeep. "Time was you didn't show up without letting me know. Are you alright, Logan-san?"

He shrugged, threw back another shot, felt smoky heat curl up the back of his nose. "I'm tryin' to get shitfaced, Yukio, what the hell do you think?"

She took her drink from the barkeep and then hooked her arm through Logan's, giving him just long enough to grab his bottle before she dragged him to an empty booth. "You haven't looked this bad in years, old man, not since ..." She seemed hesitant to say the woman's name, biting her lip a moment. "Since your fiancée passed. Did you lose someone else?" Yukio said it with complete respect and sympathy, her hand snaking across the table to touch his where it sat clutching the shotglass.

"Not the way I lost M'iko but it don't hurt any less." The alcohol had loosened him up some, made him less apt to keep a hold on his tongue. "Met a girl, fell flat on my face like a fucking idiot, and then ..." He shuddered, pulled his hand away so he could pour another shot. "I got all my memories back, 'kio, every single one of 'em. Learned a lot of shit that was likely better left buried."

"And she left you because of this?"

He growled, placing his shotglass face-down and drinking straight from the bottle. It wasn't like he wasn't going to pay for the whole thing anyway. "Woulda been easier that way. Nah, I told her she was better off without me."

"And she accepted that excuse? She let you walk away?"

"Wasn't much else she could do."

Yukio snorted. "Any woman worthy of you wouldn't have listened to you." She held up a hand when he tried to defend Teva. "I don't want to hear it, Logan. If she truly loved you there should be nothing keeping her from you, not even your own stubbornness."

Logan would be lying if he said the thought hadn't crossed his mind, that he'd wondered why Teva had let him go. She'd told him to get bent but after that she hadn't had a thing to do with him, hadn't sought him out after her temper had calmed down. Not that he'd have given in, he'd made up his mind before he'd realized it that they'd reached the end, but she hadn't even tried. The break up had been a nasty one and quite obviously a permanent one.

"You know I'm right," Yukio said. Her head was tilted to the side as she watched him, and then she got up and sat next to him instead of across from him. "Oh, Logan-san, I'm sorry. I don't mean to make you feel worse."

He let her touch him, her hand stroking over his hair, a familiar touch. They'd been lovers in the past, even before Mariko, and occasionally since then. He inhaled and caught her scent, not entirely surprised when he felt a tug low in his body, strong, but not nearly as strong as it reacted to the woman he was missing. "Not much you can do to make me feel worse, babe. Doin' a fine job of it myself."

"You always were good at that." She took his hand from around the bottle of Nikka, kept it clasped in hers as she leaned in and kissed him. "Shh," she whispered when he muttered a small, half-hearted protest. "Let me do what I'm good at, what you've let me do in the past. I can't give you back what you've lost but I can ease it some." She knew, had always known, that what they had was little more than a friendship with very occasional benefits, a way to scratch an itch or just pass the time.

A voice inside his mind protested again and he kicked it until it shut up. Yukio could give him some kind of reprieve, enough to let him shut down for awhile and just feel instead of think.

"Take me home, Yukio."


	13. Chapter 13

"Six months just does'nae seem like enough time, y'ken? I mean, I've made albums in that amount of time before but I always feel like it should take longer. Like there's always something I'm missing, some little thing or another I should have tweaked or done differently." Teva sat in Warren Worthington III's spacious, well-appointed office, sipping water from a bottle because her mouth felt as dry as the Mojave. She tried very hard not to let her ragged nerves show but her right leg was bouncing a bit, the change in her pocket jingling against her keys. The left, now-fully-healed leg was stretched out straight.

Warren shrugged from his perch on the edge of his desk, managing to make the gesture graceful. "Sometimes it just comes out, I guess. The sheer amount of work you've done is amazing and you've got enough material for another couple albums if you choose to go that route." His own water sat untouched next to his leg. "You'll do fine, Teva. The singles have been sent out and they're already getting airplay. Seems the world doesn't really care that you're a mutant as long as you're still making music."

"Aye." After so long it was strange to hear her own voice on the radio so often again, not that it had ever been anything ut weird to her. "I dinnae think that's what you called me here to talk about, though."

He smiled. "No, not really, but I do so love small talk." He slid off the edge of the desk and went around to sit in his chair after straightening his Armani suit. "I wanted to speak with you about the possibility of doing a small tour to promote the album once it drops next month. Nothing big, nothing fancy, I'm thinking small, intimate venues more suited to some of the acoustic pieces."

Teva's stomach flipped and she swallowed hastily, taking another sip of water. "I was hoping you would'nae ask me that again," she said, laughing softly. "My least favorite part of this gig."

"A necessary one, I'm afraid. It was something I wanted to discuss with you so that you could make the decision without any pressure from your band."

Her band consisted of a bassist named Cherry Hammersmith, and they'd replaced the pothead drummer with someone she actually knew: Aardwulf had been the drummer for Stellar Echo, the band whose guitarist Teva had been involved with for quite some time; Evan had been her only real extended relationship. Stellar Echo had since split, citing creative differences, and apparently when Aardwulf had heard she was looking for a drummer, he'd made a call. He was one of the best drummers she'd ever heard and he didn't care one bit that she was a mutant. As soon as he laid down his parts of the tracks and the mixing had been done Teva had realized he'd been the missing element, he'd brought something to the table she'd be hard-pressed to find otherwise.

"The album would'nae sound nearly as good without either of them so it's just as much their decision to tour as it is mine. It may be my name on the album but without them I'm nothing."

"But what do _you_ want to do?"

Stay home and never face the world again, that was what. But she knew she couldn't do that, she'd chosen this path. "What do I _want_ to do? Hide and never come out again. I did'nae take well to fame the last time. I ken it's something I need to do, though, so I'll do it."

Warren grinned. "You make it hard to forget how stubborn you are sometimes." He picked up a sheet of paper, glancing at it before he slid it to her. "I've already drawn up a tentative set of places and dates."

"Awful sure of yourself, aren't you?"

"Like I said, I knew you'd do it if I asked. You've never said no just because something bothered you."

_No, I totally didn't tell Logan to get bent just because I was pissed._ Seven months he'd been gone but even in the first one when he'd still been around she hadn't gone to him, hadn't tried to see if they could work things out. It had been easy to rationalize it by saying it wouldn't have been worth it, that it would have been a waste of time to even try when she knew he'd just fight against it. Right before she'd shut off the link she'd felt how set against it he was, read that he'd already made up his mind to let her go. She'd told him then and it had remained true that she needed to focus on her physical recovery and she couldn't spare anything if he was going to just fight her. She would have been more than willing to work with him if he'd been willing, too, willing to give both them and himself a chance. Knowing how much he still loved her had just made the knife twist that much harder.

"Teva?"

She shook her head, reaching up to brush hair out of her face. Now at shoulder length she wasn't used to it, it didn't react the same way it did when it was waist length. "Sorry, what? My mind decided to wander."

"I was pointing out some of the venues. I know you've played at the one in Stockholm before, same in London. I wasn't sure if you wanted to add one in Scotland."

"Might do that, there's a pub in Edinburgh I played at once, great acoustics." Teva scanned down the list, approved of what Warren had come up with. "Nothing in Japan? I figured Tokyo would be on the list, maybe even Okinawa."

"I figured you'd want to go there even less than you'd want to return to Scotland."

She laid her hand flat on the sheet of paper, meeting Warren's blue eyes. "It's a big place, War, just because Logan's nearby does'nae mean I'll run into him. Knowing him he'd want to avoid me just as much, it's no something I'm worried about."

Warren looked at her a moment before replying. "If you're sure, we can certainly add a couple of dates. Probably between Shanghai and Sydney."

"I'm sure. I always loved Tokyo." She sat back in her chair. "Not going to let one angry asshole dictate what I do with my career."

"I just didn't want to stir up anything," Warren said, "much as it probably surprises you to hear that from me. I know I wasn't exactly subtle either time I decided to pursue you." His head tilted to the side, an oddly birdlike gesture. "Why'd you let me go?"

Teva blinked at him, water bottle halfway to her mouth. She lowered it and licked her lips. "You're no really my type, Warren, in any sense of the word. That and you were still hung up on Candy at the time. You were looking to forget and that is'nae something I can live with. I dinnae want to be anyone's rebound and I dinnae do casual."

"Logan was a fool to let you go."

She felt her lips draw back in something close to a snarl. "And I'm sick of people saying that like they have any bloody clue what they're talking about." She pushed to her feet, still a little awkward when her leg protested the sudden movement. "There were already so many things working against us, his age for one even before we knew how old he really was, and the differences in our lives. Sometimes love just is'nae enough, y'ken?"

Warren got up, coming around his desk to touch her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Teva, I just ..." His hand came up to touch her cheek. "I did have a thing for you, after I got to know you, and even if you didn't want to have anything to do with me I can still say that I don't like knowing that you're hurting."

Teva stepped away, away from his touch. "It's a part of life, War. I should have seen it coming, should'nae have thought that having a direct link to his mind would make things any different." Her hand clutched over her stomach against an invisible ache. "It's over and there's no point in analyzing it, turning it over to poke at the bad parts like that'll make it better."

"Come to dinner with me, Teva."

She looked back up at him, so much taller than her, beautiful like the creature he'd taken the name of. His words were somewhat innocent but she could read what was below them, the spark of heat he still had towards her. "Now you'd be the rebound, War. Not to mention you're technically my boss and I dinnae need more controversy surrounding my comeback." She put her hands on his shoulders, leaned up to kiss his cheek before she stepped back again. "I'm nae ready, not for anything remotely romantic. I want to get through this as intact as I possibly can."

She could see in his eyes he'd been expecting that answer even while hoping for another, but he was smart enough to let it go. "I won't say another word about it." He gestured back towards the list on his desk. "I'll send you an updated itinerary as we get venues lined up. I'm anticipating the first performance to coincide with the release."

Her stomach flipped again. "Aye, that sounds about right. Aardwulf and I will be back in the studio next week, he's got some ideas he wanted to lay down tracks for, if that's alright with you."

"You know you don't need to ask me, Teva."

"But I do anyway." She saluted him with her water bottle. "See you, War."

She wanted to get as far away from his conflicted emotions as possible. He was well over Candy, especially after her death, but he still harbored feelings for Teva that she didn't want to deal with. Having Logan brought up hadn't pleased her at all as she was doing her best to put that behind her.

He'd been gone six months now, longer than anyone had expected him to. The other X-Men were used to him taking off for a time but usually within a month or so he was back like nothing had changed, he had always been something of the lone wolf and found it easier to keep himself in check if he could get away when he needed to. Ororo had mentioned he was in Madripoor now where he owned the Princess Bar, doing whatever it was he did in that hell hole of a principality. He'd been rather vague the one time he'd mentioned it to Teva and she hadn't been entirely sure what it meant that he didn't want to talk about it. Whatever, it didn't matter now.

_Just like it doesn't matter he's been staying with some woman._ Ororo was friends with Yukio as well and spoke highly of her, and Teva had picked up on just how close Logan was with her. She'd tried to ignore the stab of jealousy and rage that hit her when she'd realized. _He's no yours anymore, Teva, if he was ever really yours to begin with. For all he said he was he kept an awful lot to himself and then did'nae seem to think you could handle his past._

"I wish her joy of him," she growled to herself as she came out of the elevator on the ground floor of Warren's building, striding purposefully if slowly out the doors. Her shining black Chevelle SS sat in front, brought around by the valet as soon as Warren had called down to let them know she was leaving. "Thanks, Andrew," she said to the brunette valet when he handed her the keys. He always seemed a little reluctant to give them up even though the most he'd driven the car was a block to the garage.

"Drive safely, Ms. Lawson."

It had taken her some time to be able to drive the car again, her left leg protesting the use of the clutch until she'd learned to ignore it. The car responded perfectly as she slid out into mid-day New York City traffic, still light before rush hour. She'd forgotten how much she hated driving in the city but she didn't feel comfortable using public transportation for the dual reasons of her celebrity and known mutant status; people were inclined to either yell obscenities at her or beg for her autograph, sometimes the same person doing both. It was almost a waste of gas just to get to her penthouse and hand the keys over to the valet there but it was worth it for peace of mind.

"Ms. Lawson, I'm so glad to know that you didn't sell your penthouse," James the doorman said as he ushered her inside.

"And I was glad to find out you were on vacation and not gone. How have things been since I left?"

The older gentleman smiled as he stepped inside with her. "Quiet for the most part, though the apartment below yours has been as obnoxious as ever. I rather think your absence has allowed them to think they can get away with anything."

"At least the soundproofing in this place is excellent. If I'd been able to hear them blaring ABBA at all hours of the night I think I would have done something drastic." She touched his arm. "I won't be here long, James, just about a month."

"I heard you had a new album coming out. You weren't here much when you were touring with your band, either. And then you left for that school ... Good luck with that, Ms. Lawson. I'll be here if you need me."

She left him in the lobby, took the elevator up to her penthouse. She'd been on the verge of selling it shortly before the blow up with Logan and thanked God nearly daily that she'd kept it. It didn't feel like home quite as much as the Institute but it was better than an impersonal hotel room when she was in the city working on the album.

Almost immediately upon unlocking the door something felt off, not necessarily wrong, at least not until she heard someone in her kitchen. She wished very much for one of her guns, both of which were locked up now while she waited for a concealed carry permit, so she settled for reaching out with her telepathy. The mind she touched made her put her hands on her hips and adopt an exasperated, amused tone.

"Remy LeBeau, what the hell are you doing in my flat?" she demanded, her voice carrying through the empty apartment.

The man in question appeared in the doorway, a sly grin on his face and a bottle of Pepsi in his hand. "Remy didn' know when ya'd be back so he let himself in."

"And by 'let himself in' you mean you picked the lock." She crossed the room and pulled his face down to give him a smacking kiss on the lips. "Lucky I did'nae hit you with a psi-blast, you Cajun bastard."

He ducked his head in something approximating shame, still smiling. His red-on-black eyes glowed a bit in the dim apartment. "Came to see how _ma_ _belle soeur_ be doin' all alone in the big city. Make sure she behavin' herself, _n'est pas_?"

"She's behaving herself quite well, thank you." Teva moved past him into the kitchen, getting herself a bottle of Pepsi. "I did'nae ken you were coming up. I was planning on coming home next week, and definitely now before I go on tour."

Remy flopped down on the leather couch, sprawling his long limbs rather gracefully. He looked up at her through a mess of brown hair. "So that means y' gonna be gone a long while."

Teva sat down next to him, curling up against his side. He was the only man she accepted comfort from, the only one she trusted enough to let her guard down, mostly because there was nothing between them that wasn't platonic; both were looking for a sibling they hadn't been born with and with that came the ease to sit like this without it getting weird. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. "Aye, a few months at least. I dinnae ken if there'll be more dates added to the tour once it gets going, that happens sometimes when venues sell out. No way to ken at this point whether or not this will be that successful."

"Y'know it will be, Teva. Got faith in ya, the kind I don' have in anyone else."

She rested her head on his shoulder. Her hands were restless, tearing the label off her soda bottle and shredding it further into a little pile on her lap. "I hate touring," she said quietly. "I hate being alone, I hate the isolation. I thought if it ever happened again I would'nae be alone, that Logan - I hate that I still miss him, Remy. I hate that he's still got my heart and I dinnae ken how to take it back, how to stop loving him. Seven months and I'm still hoping maybe he'll realize how much of a bleeding moron he was and he'll come back."

Remy stroked her hair, resting his cheek against the top of her head. "It don' get any easier sometimes, _chere_, even with time."

"I just ... was I wrong? Not just in telling him to leave but in loving him in the first place? For all I was a permanent fixture in his mind there was a lot he never told me, things I did'nae ken because he kept them to himself. He did'nae even tell me about Mariko until I found the swords in his closet and I dinnae ken if he'd have mentioned her otherwise. Seven months with him and I did'nae even ken he'd been engaged!" She felt her breath hitch, cursed Logan for the billionth time in her mind, cursed herself even further.

"Logan be a secretive man, Teva, for all he's a good one. It not be his nature to share a lot o' himself. Ya weren't wrong for lovin' 'im, for wantin' to be loved in return."

Teva sniffled, wiping tears from her eyes with her hand. "I just wish I had'nae given him so much of myself, like maybe that would have made this easier."

"Y' wouldn' be Teva if y' did that, _chere_. Ya wear your heart on your sleeve for all the world t' see."

"I guess I just made it that much easier for him to stomp all over it then."

Remy shifted so that he could look at her. "Don' say that, Teva. Logan be in the wrong here an' I don't wanna hear ya say otherwise, _comprends-tu_?"

She looked down, away from his eyes. "All I do is second guess myself anymore, Remy. Dinnae ken what to do anymore."

"Ya gonna get t'rough this, is what ya gonna do. And I'll be here any time ya need me, all ya gotta do is call."


	14. Chapter 14

To Logan's perspective, time had the distinct quality of both speeding up and slowing down, mostly due to the fact he'd lived at least two lifetimes already. He was entirely capable of losing himself for weeks at a time either because he'd entered some kind of Zen mindset or he was deliberately forcing himself into denial (and he was very good at ignoring things he didn't want to deal with). He'd passed time in Japan visiting places he now remembered and when he'd gotten restless roaming the islands he'd gone to Madripoor. Yukio had been more than happy to come with him, not having anything more pressing to do, and for a time he'd managed to keep himself occupied there.

He was sitting in the small, dingy back office of the Princess Bar one day, feet up on the desk while he blew cigar smoke rings up at the ceiling and listened to the radio. Belle had gotten satellite radio for her niece so it wasn't just the local stations in a polyglot of languages; there were quite a few available from Europe and North America if that appealed more. He flipped through her presets, wrinkling his nose at the predominance of pop and hip hop which pretty much equated to "noise" in his mind, before he came to a station playing the end of Pink Floyd's "Brick in the Wall."

The DJ started talking about music news, Metallica's latest flop being the first story, and when he heard Teva's name he sat up, feet touching the ground again.

_"Mutant rock star Teva Lawson, former lead singer of the all-female metal band Antiheroine, recently announced she's putting out a solo album, as yet untitled,"_ the DJ was saying. _"Joining her are Cherry Hammersmith on bass, and Aardwulf, former drummer for Stellar Echo. Lawson was involved with Stellar Echo's guitarist Evan Anderson back during their _Staring Down_ tour."_

_"It's a bit of a departure from what I did with Antiheroine."_ Teva's voice flowed out of the speakers, her brogue rolling over the R's and creating music out of her words. Logan felt a brief pain in his chest when he heard it. _"Certainly it's very guitar driven, true to the rock music that made me famous in the first place, but there are several acoustic songs as well. This time around I was more focused on the words and the emotions I was trying to get across."_

The DJ came back on. _"When asked if she was worried about backlash regarding her status as _homo sapiens superior_, Lawson said, 'What's the point? Either people will enjoy the music or they won't, that's all that matters.' Look for the album in September of this year."_

Logan sat forward, surprised to find his hands shaking when he placed them on the desk in front of him, covering the ledger book he'd been looking over. He still thought about Teva, couldn't do anything else sometimes, especially when he called to catch up with Ororo at the Institute. The African goddess never brought her up unless he asked, which he'd started doing more often, but she hadn't mentioned what Teva was doing musically. He mostly just wanted to make sure she was healing properly from the run-in with Creed. He'd been a little surprised to find out she'd retained the healing factor she'd mimicked, though it operated at a much lower capacity than his own, but he was glad he'd been able to give her something that stuck. Something that would do more than just hurt her.

_Dammit._ He pushed himself to his feet, stalking out to the bar where he poured himself a drink. The usual crowd was around on a weeknight, everyone steadily getting drunk under Belle's watchful eye.

"You don't look so good, Logan." Belle had aged rather gracefully despite her adult life spent in Lowtown, which was never kind to its denizens, but then again, Belle could handle herself, she was tougher than she looked. She wore her now-white hair in a tight chignon, her body still slender in black pants and a maroon top.

"Mmmm." He downed the drink, Belle's "special brew" that only the two of them could drink without falling on their asses, and also one of the few things that could get him truly plastered. He poured himself another and enjoyed the buzz. "'M fine, Belle."

"Maybe you can lie to yourself, sweetie, but not to me. Known you long enough to know when you're not being truthful." She pulled the pitcher towards herself along with a glass, filling it flawlessly without taking her green eyes off of him. "You've been in a blue funk ever since you showed up here, never seen you so miserable."

"I don't wanna talk about it, Belle. Leave off." He leaned against the bar facing the rows of bottles and the mirrored wall, back to the room. He tugged his cowboy hat lower over his eyes. He knew unless he walked, though, that she'd keep at him. She'd just take her sweet time about it and all he wanted to do was just forget about it.

Sure enough she was quiet for a while, serving patrons, teasing and flirting with the two old timers who were in every night. She breezed back behind the bar to pour herself another drink, wiping up a spill on the back counter. "Talk, old man."

"Dammit." He sighed, glaring at the pitcher they'd emptied. When she produced another from the refrigerated case and poured for him he grunted in approval. "Just lettin' somethin' bother me that I need to get the hell over." He'd made the decision to walk away, hadn't he? Why did he keep second-guessing himself? Why did one young woman keep haunting him?

"Oh, honey, get your heart broken and you aren't gonna just get over it."

Logan stared at her over the rim of his glass. "Yukio?" he asked.

"Nah, just a woman's intuition." Belle smiled. "Well, Yukio did tell me about it but I'd figured it out before she said anything. And I don't believe you're as blameless in the whole thing as she swears you are."

"No one's ever blameless." Plenty of that to go around and most of it was his. He brought his cigar up to his mouth and sucked on it.

Belle touched his arm, gave him a squeeze. "Ever think about patching things up?"

Spicy smoke trickled from his lips. "It's been too long, Belle. Girl hates my guts now and like I told her, she's better off without me. All I'm gonna do is end up gettin' her killed 'fore her time, one o' the few things I seem to be good at."

"So what, just 'cause your life is dangerous that means you can't fall in love?"

"I can fall in love, I just can't do anything about it."

"You even give the girl a choice? Or did you just walk off being all stoic and shit like you know better just 'cause you're old as dirt?"

Logan glared at her and pulled his arm away. "I told her she was better off and she told me to walk away."

Belle arched one eyebrow and snorted, taking a drink. "'Spect maybe she knew she'd be better off not arguing with you. As much bullshit as you come up with I don't think I'd wanna deal with it, either."

"Thanks, Belle, real nice talkin' to ya." He jerked upright and stalked towards the back room again. Belle said something to her niece about watching the bar for a moment before she followed him. "'Less ya got somethin' useful to say I don't wanna hear it."

"Seen you do a lot of stupid shit in the past, Logan, but right now this is taking the cake. Last time I saw you this far gone over a girl you were gonna marry her, what the hell is different this time?"

The obvious mention of Mariko made him bare his teeth at Belle in anger. "Difference is I know who I am now, I know that every woman I've ever made the mistake of fallin' for has ended up dead an' I don't want her to be the next."

"Seems to me she's the one made the mistake of falling in love with a guy who didn't give her a choice, who made the decision to end it for her." Belle crossed her arms beneath her breasts and stared at him. "Tell me, Logan, how that's fair."

She didn't understand, no one did. No one else saw the world the way he did, no one else had seen his past. "Fair don't matter -"

"Like hell it doesn't. Bet I'm the first one who's called you on it 'cause I know sure as hell Yukio wouldn't, she'll just take advantage of the fact you're hurting so she can pretend you're hers again." She strode forward and poked him in the chest with a long-nailed finger. "She told me all about it, about how your girl damn near got herself killed saving your sorry hide and you barely waited a day to tell her it was over. 'Course Yukio made her the villain of the tale but I see right through you, Logan."

He grabbed her wrist, held her hand away from him. "Ya don't know what the hell yer talkin' about, Belle." He was having trouble hanging on to his temper, wanted to lash out.

"At least admit that it's not me you're angry with right now."

Logan let her go abruptly and stalked away towards the back door, he needed to get out of the small, confined space. "Ain't gonna apologize to ya." The ripe scent of Lowtown hit him like a slap in the face but it was better than smelling the disappointment from her.

He heard her voice, quiet on his heels. "I'm not the one you need to apologize to."

The words clung to his ears as he left, his hands shoved into his pockets so he wouldn't be tempted to use them, do something destructive with them. It was an impulse he barely had control over these days, his rage simmering so close to the surface that he woke up some days not quite sure who was in control, the man or the beast. He warred with the darker part of him for dominance every second of every day, something he hadn't had to do since the Hudsons had found him wandering around Alberta so many years ago and taught him how to be a human being again, gave him the compassion he hadn't had for so long. He'd called them and talked to Heather, let her know what had happened with the info Jimmy had given him, though he'd been terse with the rest of the fallout. The redhead he'd once loved more than a sister had offered refuge that he thanked her politely for.

It was a short walk back to the run-down boarding house where he and Yukio were shacking up while in Madripoor. She'd be out at this time of day, getting involved in things she shouldn't be involved in, but as long as she didn't bring trouble back with her she could do whatever the hell she pleased. She'd show up sometime, likely with dinner, and then talk his ear off. Sometimes he missed the prolonged silences he'd gotten with Teva, the ability she had to not need to speak either out loud or across the link, there'd been many times where they'd curl up on the bed or the couch and just read. He remembered one lazy afternoon where he laid his head in her lap and dozed while she read with one hand stroking his head, damn near making him purr with contentment.

The memory dragged a pained growl from him. He didn't want to be cooped up right now so he turned before he got to the boarding house, headed for the docks where he could look out on the bay. Just as all of his past was constantly on his mind, Teva was a close second. He'd thought he'd finally moved on until he'd started dreaming about her, about them, about their experience together inside of his head. He dreamed about how brave she'd been, how far she'd carried him until it almost killed her, how she'd known it would likely kill her and she'd done it anyway. And in the end she'd given him a reason to keep going when he faltered.

A few times he'd pulled out his cell phone where he still had her on speed dial but he never called. What would he even say? _"I'm sorry you almost died for me and I walked away from that"?_ He could imagine the hail of curses she'd rain on him for that, for even thinking it let alone calling her to say it. He wasn't sure if he wanted to do it more because he was genuinely remorseful or because he wanted to make himself feel better, to ease the guilt that ate him up as surely as anything else he'd ever done wrong. Her face first and foremost haunted him but instead words of accusation all she did was look at him, golden eyes wide to keep tears from spilling. He'd only seen her cry a handful of times, she had to get very upset before she got to that point, but only once had it ever been because he'd hurt her.

Yukio kept telling him he'd made the right decision and at first he'd been willing to hear that, to think that Teva had just as much blame as he did. Kurt had been the voice of reason, there, when he'd called the man who was his best friend. The German hadn't been at the mansion when everything had happened, off in England instead with Excalibur, but he offered advice when asked. And he told Logan that he hadn't given Teva a chance, hadn't accepted the great gift that God (in Kurt's eyes) had bestowed upon him despite all the bad Logan had done in his life. Teva had merely been protecting herself, knowing that she had a long and painful recovery ahead of her that didn't include rehabilitating Logan's psyche. Kurt would never lie to him, not even to save him grief, and he needed someone who was going to be honest with him. Kurt had even urged him to call her to make amends, something he still couldn't bring himself to do.

What good would it do? He was still incredibly fucked up even if he did finally remember everything; sometimes he thought he'd known more about himself before he'd gotten all of his memories back. It was all still a jumble in his head, a mess that even meditation was doing nothing to help him put into order. The only way he could put any timeline on any of it was by the benchmark of wars, the five he'd fought in being the most prominent, the easiest to pick out and pin down. Missions with Team X were harder to place since he'd been mind-wiped after each one, like those people on that TV show, something about dolls ...

He snorted, shaking his head at the absurdity of the shit that popped into his head sometimes. Around him, the denizens of Madripoor - descendants of the pirates who'd used the island as a hideout and smuggling point - went about their work on the docks, speaking in myriad languages that he understood clearly. There was the usual good-natured ribbing between co-workers, shop talk and cursing when something went wrong. It was all so terribly natural, so completely mundane, and it was the only thing normal in his life right now.

Logan drew his hands out of his pockets and looked at them. Small for a man but right for his build, rough and dark with time spent in the sun just like the rest of his body, hairy on the backs with blunt fingers that ended in short fingernails. Three divots just below his knuckles on the back of either one where his claws came out and, if he pressed hard enough, he could feel scar tissue there built up from years of abuse. His mouth quirked as he remembered the time he drank enough to pass out on the back veranda of the mansion and Jubilee and Kitty painted his nails pink. Another normal thing, the kind of thing a couple of kids would do to an older brother.

Jubilee had told him off before he'd left but then she'd hugged him fiercely. She knew him well enough to know he needed to get away, something he appreciated about her for all she annoyed the piss out of him half the time, calling him "Wolvie" and being a general pain-in-the-ass. He missed her, missed his life back the mansion, even missed the X-Men as the family he'd somehow become a part of.

That was a kick in the pants, really, to a guy like him. And for someone who noticed every little thing around them, they'd snuck up on him, brought him into the fold, the black sheep who'd needed no one and nothing to tie him down. He'd never had that with Alpha Flight as close as he'd been to the Hudsons.

He could go back to Westchester, no one there would turn him away. Not even Teva would begrudge him his place there.

Slowly he was beginning to realize that his teammates, his _friends_, would help him get through this. None of them had ever turned him out, not even seeing the things he was capable of, and here he was running around like a flaming idiot doing the 'woe-is-me' routine. It was ridiculous, like he was some emo teenager who needed a good kick in the pants to make him realize how damn good he had it.

Logan shoved his hands back in his pockets and left the docks, heading once more for the boarding house. It wasn't home, wasn't even close, and suddenly he wanted to go back to Japan. He needed to go there anyway, to visit M'iko like he did every year. From there ... who knew?


	15. Chapter 15

_Aardwulf basically looks like Zakk Wylde (of Black Label Society, formerly guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne)._

* * *

The bottle of single malt in front of Teva was halfway gone and she was still standing, buzzed but not beyond the realm of being able to interact with others, another side effect of the healing factor she'd mimicked. Whereas before she'd be sound asleep after that amount of good alcohol, now she just felt a little hazy, removed from everything, and that was preferable to allowing her thoughts and feelings to take over again. The pub around her was lively after the set, the atmosphere heavy with cigar smoke and someone drunkenly singing an off-key rendition of "Donald Where's Your Trousers?" complete with backup harmony from other equally-drunk patrons. Someone bumped into her, forcing her in against the bar and nearly knocking her whiskey over.

A hand shot out and grabbed the bottle, righting it before any of the precious liquid spilled out, and then Aardwulf was standing there, smiling his lazy smile. He'd lost his cowboy hat at some point, likely given away to some pretty girl that had caught his fancy, leaving his long, sandy blond hair loose and unadorned around his shoulders. When he'd been with Stellar Echo his hair had been down to his waist, same as Teva's, and she'd always been a little envious at how nice it was; it wasn't fair for men to have such nice hair with little effort. The scruffy hair on his face was a shade darker than his hair, adding to his rather unkempt appearance.

"Thanks," she said, taking the bottle from his hand and knocking some back. It burned down her throat, the taste and scent of peat smoke rising up at the very end.

"Forgot you drink like a man," he drawled, his accent marking an upbringing in Kentucky. "Don't remember you holdin' down this much liquor, though." He eyed the level of liquid still left.

"I've had practice," she half-lied. Truth was she'd started drinking again after the first concert, the urge and the need to blunt her nerves too strong to ignore. Everything she'd done to break herself of this habit, over a year of sobriety, now meaningless because she just couldn't handle the pain of losing a man. The irony that she had a life many would kill for had not escaped her. "I seem to remember ye trying to drink me under the table a time or two, Aard. Never go up against a Scot when it comes to alcohol, we'll kick your arses with nary a trouble."

He smirked as he slid onto the stool next to her, snagging the bottle out of her hand almost before she realized what he was doing. "At least ya have the good sense to pick somethin' good to drink," he said, taking a long swig. "Burns real nice goin' down."

Teva found herself watching his hands, his long fingers drawing idle designs on the top of the bar. He had various rings on, a grinning skull and one of Celtic knotwork not unlike her own, and he wore a leather cuff on his wrist, revealed by the rolled-back sleeves of his shirt. The hand still holding the bottle had fingernails painted dark blue, an affectation he'd had as long as she'd known him. She'd always had a bit of a hand fetish and he fit the bill and then some; musicians in particular were her favorites.

There were other hands that she'd rather be seeing right now. "Gimme back my whiskey," she said, reaching for the bottle.

"Still enjoyin' it, darlin', I'll give it back in a second."

"Dinnae call me that," she growled, lips drawing back in a snarl as she reached for the bottle again and he held it out of reach, still smiling.

"What, _darlin'_? That too familiar for ya, honey?" He took another drink and then slid it back to her. "Or does it have somethin' to do with the man ya been tryin' to forget by drinkin' yourself blind?"

"How the fuck do y'ken about that?"

Aardwulf leaned his elbows on the bar, folding his hands together as he looked at her. "Seen the way you get on certain songs, sweetheart. Only reason a woman looks like that is when her heart got torn out and someone did a fuckin' hoe-down on it. Whoever he is, he ain't worth it."

She turned her glare on him, pissed that she was apparently so easily read, and she opened her mouth to say something when someone slammed into her from behind again. This time her bottle went flying, sliding off to shatter on the floor behind the bar. Her stomach hit the edge of the bar, the wind knocked out of her so that she had to sit there a moment to regain the ability to breathe.

"Teva, ya okay?" Aardwulf asked.

Teva turned to find the man who'd been thrown into her now down on the ground. "Who threw the lumberjack?" she demanded, pointing down at him as she got to her feet.

A half-dozen fingers pointed at an equally-large man standing a few feet away, hands still balled into fists.

"The fuck is your problem?" she asked him. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him, he had to have been at least a foot taller than her.

"Nothing to concern ye, lass, just go back to your boyfriend over there an' let the men take care o' this."

"Ooh," she heard Aardwulf say behind her. "Shouldn'ta said that, buddy."

Teva swung at the big man, connecting solidly with his nose because he wasn't expecting the punch from such a small woman. She felt her knuckles split with the force of her blow, her fingers going momentarily numb. She followed up with a left uppercut that took him in the jaw.

He roared in pain and anger, arms thrown wide to wrap her in a bear hug and subdue her. She brought her knee up into his balls and he went down crying like a little girl, trying to cover both nose and groin from further possible assault.

The pub erupted into chaos around her, the other patrons deciding that was the signal to start a full-on brawl. Fists and chairs flew and she was pretty sure she saw the bouncer beating on someone else, useless as crowd control.

It was the perfect outlet for all the anger and pent-up frustration she'd been feeling for months now, something she'd been unable to do anything about away from the mansion and the Danger Room, though when she'd been home she'd still had limited mobility. Even now her leg twinged but she ignored it and did her best to keep from breaking her hands as she waded into the fight, red hair flying behind her, her voice ringing out in laughter. She'd always loved fights like this but there was an edge to it now that she hadn't felt before, something that reveled in the chaos and violence.

The only one who gave her any problem was another woman who apparently thought scratching with her nails was appropriate, leaving Teva with four shallow gouges along her cheek. Teva cold-cocked her and moved onto the next, a man about her size who put up a good fight but was no match for a mutant with battle training riding an adrenaline high.

She bumped into someone and turned to take them on, finding herself facing Aardwulf. His hair was in disarray as hers was, the sleeve of his shirt ripped so that it gaped at the shoulder, and he was grinning at her.

"What?" she asked, catching her breath.

"You're about the sexiest thing I've ever seen right now, sweetheart. Like a little hellcat or somethin'."

Teva felt lust zip up her spine at the look in his eyes, and before she realized what she was doing she'd jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist and sinking her hands into his hair as she kissed him, hard. She felt him stagger but he caught her, braced his legs so that they didn't fall. There was a voice in her head asking just what the hell she was doing and she shoved it down, buried it deep. A new part of herself was awake, one that found the fight to be adequate foreplay and now it wanted to release the energy built up.

He was a good kisser, thorough and lazy even though she could feel how strongly he responded to her, his hands cupping her butt to keep her in place.

"The hell was that for?" he asked when she pulled away, breathing hard.

"Ye complaining?" she retorted, disentangling herself and dropping back to her feet.

"No, ma'am," he drawled, "I surely ain't."

Her body was buzzing and she knew that, whether or not she might regret this in the morning, she wanted it. He was on her heels as she headed out the door, reaching for her hand.

"Where ya goin'?"

"Hotel. Are ye coming?" It was raining when they stepped out, the driving horizontal type Scotland was famous for, soaking them both almost instantly.

"Yes, ma'am."

The few blocks back were a blur, neither one able to keep their hands off the other, but with the late hour the streets were empty with no one to tell them to behave themselves. There was almost some trouble in the lift when Aardwulf started trying to pull off her shirt, and by the time they were in her suite they were both laughing like loons trying to get their cold, soaked clothing off. The various pieces hit the floor with wet _splats_ wherever they landed.

Teva tripped backwards over her combat boots she'd left lying carelessly on the floor and they went down together, still giggling. "Goddammit, I have'nae been this sloppy since secondary and I had too many wine coolers."

"Ha, I knew ya drank fruity shit at some point in your life."

"Shut it," she said, pushing him onto his back on the floor. She was losing the buzz from the alcohol but still riding endorphins and adrenaline, and she found she had no reservations about this. For a moment her control slipped, further aided by her hands on his bare skin, and the emotions she got from Aardwulf made her pull away quickly, scrambling until her back hit the bed and she had nowhere else to go.

"What?" he asked, leaning up on his elbows and staring at her. "I do somethin'?"

She shook her head, scattering strands of wet hair into her face. "Shit, no, no, gimme a second." She scrubbed her hands over her face. "I, ah ... dammit. Ye know about my mutant powers, right?"

Aardwulf frowned at her in confusion for a moment before clarity made his blue eyes go wide. "'Shit' is right."

"Why did ye never tell me, Aard? And how long have ye felt this way?"

"Since before Evan."

It was her turn to stare at him. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, but I knew he liked ya and I don't poach my buddies' girls. Ain't right."

Teva drew her legs up to hug her knees to her chest, feeling suddenly vulnerable despite the fact it was Aardwulf's feelings being revealed. "Aye, but ... ah, dammit. This is just a complication, I dinnae feel that way about ye, Aard, you're sweet and I like ye but ..."

"It's just sex to ya?" There was neither hurt in his voice nor in what she read from him. "I'm okay with that, honey, I ain't lookin' for some grand romance here." He got up and knelt next to her, completely at ease in his nudity. "I just wanna take some of that hurt off your face, see ya smile a little again. I wanna make ya happy for a little while."

She wasn't sure what to say to that so she dipped her head, looking down and away from him. His hand touched the side of her neck so that his thumb could brush along her jaw but he didn't force her to look at him again.

"S'ok, Teva. One night ain't gonna kill ya."

"Aye, but I dinnae want to use ye, Aard. I'm not that kind of lass." The very thought that she almost was, that she'd been about to sleep with him before she'd known how he felt about her, made her stomach roil. She'd never been like that, always needed an emotional connection before sex became something she felt ready for, and she wondered if more than just Logan's healing factor had been mimicked, if maybe she'd picked up some of his personality traits.

"Ain't usin' me if I let ya do it, are ya?" He finally got her to look at him and she saw it in his blue eyes. "Let yourself go for a night, girl. If ya wanna kick me out after, ya can, my room's right down the hall so it ain't like I gotta do the Walk of Shame."

She snorted. "You're a verrae strange man, Aardwulf. Ye always were."

"Flatterer." He leaned towards her and kissed her, gently. "Ya done bein' all skittish?"

"Aye, I think I am."

* * *

For all that Teva hated most aspects of touring, of traveling all over the world living in hotels, she couldn't deny the very real contentment that filled her when she was on stage. There were already fans who knew all the words to the new songs, a thing that never ceased to amuse and exasperate her, but she took it because she knew her words meant something to someone.

They were in Tokyo and she found she wasn't worried, almost didn't care anymore. She had nothing to fear from this city and she sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone ruin this for her. Even the acoustic piece she was singing now couldn't quite bring her down no matter who it was about.

_Your voice was my weakness_  
_A thing I couldn't kill_  
_It slipped right inside me_  
_And shattered my will_

_Though you fought to deny me_  
_To keep me away_  
_It was you who let your guard down_  
_You were the one to say_

_Don't fight it_  
_Let it go_  
_Open up to me_  
_Just let it go_

Her head was bowed over her blue acoustic/electric Washburn, one small microphone attached to the sound board so the music wouldn't be lost in the crowd, and she didn't look up as the words poured out of her, a soft mezzo-soprano mixing with Aardwulf's baritone. Her bassist sat off stage taking a break so it was just the two of them singing together. They hadn't slept together since that one night in Edinburgh but this meant more to her now, being able to perform with someone who cared about her, loved the music just as much as she did.

She looked up again, out at the crowd, eyes skimming randomly as her fingers picked out the chords.

_So of course you were the one_  
_The one who said stop_  
_You said 'This tale can't end well_  
_You can't follow me to the top'_

Teva let her mind wander out over the crowd as well, skimming the emotions and feelings over her audience, gauging not just their enjoyment of the song but how it affected them. Ballads like this always went over well even with the rock fans as long as there weren't too many of them, and there were quite a few people who identified with her lyrics. It was a buoy to her to know that she wasn't the only one who felt heartache, to know she wasn't alone.

Sharp regret made her draw a breath a little harder than usual, jerked her gaze over to the left of the room towards the back of the crowd, and only sheer stubbornness kept her singing as the man she was singing about stared back at her.

_Though I'd given my life for yours_  
_And I'd bled myself dry_  
_Now you fought to get away_  
_Said I shouldn't even try_

_Don't fight it_  
_Let it go_  
_Walk away now_  
_Just let it go_

_Body and soul, I gave myself over_  
_Heart and soul, you came over, too_  
_I guess I should have seen this coming_

Her fingers automatically found the chords of her solo but her eyes were still on him, had remained so since she'd seen him. He looked haggard, rougher than usual, his hair looking different in a way she couldn't identify in the dark room with him at the back of the crowd. His own dark eyes bore into hers and she could tell that he couldn't look away from her, had just as much stubbornness in him as she did. There was a Japanese woman with him, sitting across the table from him, her hand touching his arm with a somewhat proprietary air. She saw Teva and smiled, clearly saying, _He's mine now._

Teva hit the chorus again, her voice wavering slightly but she finished strong and was glad that the next song was harder, something she could use to release the jumble of things she was feeling now. She pushed it all out into the audience, let their excitement pull her up, let it sweep away her pain, her confusion and her heartache.

She felt hollow when the set was over, like someone had come along and scooped out her insides with a spoon and though she looked for him, he was gone. Gone off with Yukio though it had seemed he'd missed her if the emotions she'd read from him were right, just skimming the surface so that she didn't have to bring her shields down. But in all this time he hadn't called her, hadn't contacted her in any way.

She let Aardwulf drag her off to watch TV and eat, eager for something to take her mind off of seeing Logan again.

* * *

_Please excuse my terrible attempt at songwriting. I've never been good at it._


	16. Chapter 16

"C'mon, Logan, let's go out."

He lay facedown on the bed trying to ignore Yukio. Kind of hard to do since she was sitting on his back. "Go 'way, 'kio," he said, voice muffled by the pillow. "I had a long day."

She started poking him in the ribs. "I want to go out, Logan, and I don't want to go alone. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

He groaned, not sure he wanted to know what she meant by that; sexual favors weren't exactly something he was interested in, at least not lately. Finally he rolled onto his side, dislodging her from her perch. "I ain't up to anything don't got the word 'beer' in it, and Tokyo ain't exactly full o' my kind of bar. Half the places ya like got those damn catgirls runnin' around." Yukio's taste in night clubs ran to the eccentric and he'd learned long ago to avoid them.

"I know of a place that'll be perfect, I promise. No catgirls, no guys that look like girls, nothing that bothers you." There was something about her eagerness he feared he'd regret before the night was over but he really could use a beer, especially after the long day he'd already put in.

Since they'd gotten back he'd taken a job on the docks, not that he really needed the money, but the physical labor kept him in shape and gave him something to keep himself busy, something to take pride in. Left him smelling like fish when he got back but he could deal with that, he'd done the job in the past. He'd even worked with the grandfathers of some of the kids there. They gave him shit for being old like kids did, and he got on with the old timers with whom he had more in common. It was honest work for a mostly-honest man.

"Lemme get a shower," he grumbled, shuffling off into the spacious bathroom. A scalding-hot shower later he felt something close to human again.

Yukio was dressed and waiting when he finished, looking sleek and beautiful in dark, form fitting clothing that showed off her leanly-muscled body.

"I gotta dress up at all?" he asked.

"No more than usual, I think. It's not the kind of place you need to impress someone."

He wouldn't go to a place like that anyway. It was easy enough to find clothes, comfortably-faded jeans, a dark T-shirt under a worn button-down with the sleeves rolled back, and work boots. Without much effort he got his hair tied back, long enough to brush his shoulders now that he'd let it grow. It was something he did from time to time when he got too lazy to cut it. His muttonchops were longer now, too, much to the amusement of the guys he worked with.

There was a small crowd waiting to enter the bar Yukio had chosen but they got in quickly and he headed straight for beer. "There somethin' goin' on tonight?" he asked, looking around at the milling people.

"Some live music, I think," Yukio replied, ordering a drink. They waited for the bartender to serve them. "We can get a table near the back, I know you're not crazy about being close to loud music."

"S'loud anywhere I sit, but yeah. Thanks." The bar was smallish with lots of tables crammed in, most of them closer to the small stage that was already set up for three musicians. Thankfully the tables near the back were spread out a little more and when they had their drinks, he chose one that put his back to the wall. It was an old habit left over from God only knew when and it had saved his life more than once, an instinct he never questioned. It let him keep an eye on his surroundings, let him people-watch.

Logan drank the first glass of beer quickly before pouring another that he enjoyed at a more leisurely pace. Yukio nursed her cocktail along, some girly drink he didn't know the name for, and they talked quietly for a time waiting for the music to start. He could feel himself relaxing a little, the alcohol giving the desired effect of easing the tension inside of him.

The first indication he had that things weren't what they seemed was the scent of Ivory soap, something uncommon in Japan, slightly powdery but clean hitting his nose and conjuring up ghosts. Combined with the right body chemistry, he could pick that up in any crowd and he felt his his entire body react, his heart speeding up. He sat up from his lazy slouch to see a little better over the crowd in front of him, and then she walked on stage. It was like a punch to the gut, to see her again after so long, enough to make his breath come short.

The first thing he noticed was her hair, she'd cut it at some point so that it skimmed her shoulders, still the same deep red now washed out in the bright lights of the stage. The rest of her, though, was perfect, and still very much the same: she was dressed not that much differently from the very first time he'd ever seen her, in baggy cargo pants that rode low on her hips, though this time her shirt was a little more stylish, a form-fitting royal blue instead of a threadbare tour T-shirt. When she reached up to brush her hair back he caught the shine of hoops in her right ear, one small black feather dangling from her earlobe. Without seeing it he knew she had only two piercings in her left ear, one in the lobe and one she said was called a "tragus." He remembered teasing her that she had more foreign metal in her body than he did.

She went straight to the microphone, pulling it out of its stand as she sat down casually on the edge of the stool set up there. "_Konbanwa_," she said, then she grinned. "Okay, that's the extent of my Japanese aside from some cursing I picked up from a guy I used to know, and words having to do with your fine cuisine, but I'm learning as best I can." The audience laughed quietly. Her left hand, held at her side, moved nervously, fingers shifting in a gesture Logan recognized as her running chords through her head. It was something she did when she was anxious, the only outward sign she allowed herself once she'd learned to keep her emotions under control.

"Anyway, I wanted to start by thanking you all for coming tonight, it means a lot to me. I prefer smaller venues like this where I can actually see you all." She shifted and laughed softly. "Except the ones in the back, with the lights in my eyes I may as well be looking at a bunch of blobs." She shifted again, putting her booted right foot on one of the rungs of the stool, leaving her left leg straight out, making Logan wonder how well she was getting around on it.

The short-purple-haired woman who'd come out with her was getting settled with her bass guitar, plucking out a few testing notes.

A man stepped on stage with drumsticks and a guitar in his hands, the latter being handed off to Teva. Logan noticed the way they moved around each other, the way the long-haired blond touched her shoulder, a familiarity that usually only meant one thing. A sub-vocal growl vibrated in his chest as possessiveness crawled its way out of his gut to try and choke him.

He felt a hand on his arm and turned his head to look at Yukio. "Ya knew she was gonna be here," he growled, pulling his arm away from her. "Dammit, Yukio."

"I thought maybe seeing her again would help you to get over her." The Japanese woman across from him looked a little petulant and, at the same time, eager. That worried him. "She's obviously over you, you saw the way the drummer touched her. What better way to put this all behind you?"

"And if she just happens to see us, you're not gonna rub it in that ya 'caught' me?" Yukio's eyes widened, she was trying to fake surprise and hurt. "Don't gimme that innocent shit, girl, I know you. Ya wanna flaunt what ya got."

"I'm sorry, Logan-san." There was genuine remorse in her voice, underneath the deceit. Yukio had been after him since before Mariko but she was deluding herself if she thought she had his heart, only a handful of women had ever gotten it and only one woman in the room had it. Still. _Dammit._ "Would you like to leave?"

That would be like running away, and he wasn't going to do that a second time. He finally eased back in his chair and reached for his beer again. "I'll stay. Just ... behave yourself, yeah?"

There were no further comments from Yukio and, soon enough, the concert started.

Teva gave small explanations before each song, giving the audience an idea of the emotions and ideas that had gone into them, letting the fans feel like they were a part of it. Even above and beyond her mutant ability to manipulate emotions she was a born storyteller, able to engage with words and gestures that drew you in, created a sort of intimacy that gave the impression she was speaking only to you. Logan felt his heart racing and he wasn't sure if it was fear of her possibly seeing him or just knowing that she was so close but still completely out of his reach.

Her voice was at turns joyful and sad, conveying the mood of each song. Logan was left affected only by her presence, so tightly was he holding onto his psi-shields to not project to her or feel what she was feeling, he wasn't sure his heart could take it. He was so painfully in love with her, had never fallen out of love, and it hurt worse to see how she interacted with her drummer. It was casual, subtle, likely not obvious to anyone who didn't know either of them well or wasn't versed in body language the way Logan was.

The bassist left the stage at one point and Teva switched out guitars, taking the blue acoustic/electric Washburn that Logan knew was one of her favorites. She ran her fingers expertly up the frets, tuning while she spoke to the audience.

"So there's a theme to this whole album which is likely a wee bit obvious," she said, a self-deprecating smile on her lips. "There was this guy, and it was good until ... it was'nae, anymore. Fortunately I have the outlet of being able to write music and if it were'nae for this I may have gone a bit crazier than I already am." She clipped a small microphone to the soundboard so that it would pick up the music more easily.

Were Logan the type to blush he would have, despite the fact that no one else in the room save Yukio knew who she was speaking of. His companion slid her hand across to touch his arm again and he let her, mind only halfway on his surroundings, on the waitress bringing him a full pitcher of beer.

This song was acoustic, accompanied only by soft drums, Teva's quiet voice twining with that of her drummer's. They combined with the words to make Logan's chest tight with regret. He heard her breath catch and his hand tightened around his glass as her eyes searched the crowd and locked onto his. He felt the brush against their shared link, after months of nothing, and he felt both hurt and longing from her, love tainted by the pain he'd put her through with his stupidity. She clamped down on the link, then, hard enough to make his head hurt, but it was enough. Enough to give him hope. She missed him.

They remained like that, both too stubborn to stop, to save themselves the hurt of looking away, until the song was over.

Logan didn't pay much attention to the rest of the concert, and Teva didn't look at him again. He could tell she was shaken by his presence and he was proud of her for staying strong, he'd known she had it in her to keep going. Her survival instinct was just as strong as his was.

It was easy to slip out after. This wasn't the right time and place for him to say anything to her, to apologize and try to make amends, but even after they got back to Yukio's apartment it was eating at him. It was a war inside of him, the need to see her, to speak to her, against the knowledge that she was still hurting and that she seemed to have something going on with her drummer. That part really stuck in his craw despite the fact that he'd been living with Yukio for months now, but no one had ever said emotions were rational.

Yukio was out almost as soon as they got back and he'd hoped to be able to crash quickly after his long day. No joy, though, as the clock across the room seemed to be mocking him while the minutes passed.

He slipped out while Yukio was sleeping, not bothering to leave a note because it didn't matter, she was smart enough to figure out where he'd gone. It didn't take very long to find which hotel Teva was staying at, or find out her room number, it was upper-scale in keeping with her celebrity image, and he knew her well enough to know it probably annoyed her. She didn't like flashy things, things that drew attention to her or set her apart as different, even less so now that she was publicly known as a mutant.

The hotel itself was actually rather understated, the Japanese not being given to flashy things themselves. He made his way to the upper floors, his inner monologue flipping between _This is stupid_ and _Just get it over with, make your apologies and this'll be done with._ He came to her door and listened a moment, not wanting to wake her if she were asleep, and he damned near turned around and left when he heard her laughter followed quickly by that of a man. It wasn't the low, intimate type of laughter, though, more like they were watching whatever was on the TV he could hear playing in the background.

Still, it took him another few moments to raise his hand and rap knuckles on the door. Uncertainty wasn't something that he felt very often. He'd rather be facing Galactus right now than doing this.

"I swear to Christ if that's some reporter that got in, I'm going to kill someone." It was Teva speaking, her voice getting louder as she came to answer. "And dinnae you turn off Conan," she said, body half-turned away while opening it, "or I'll cut off your head." The last word died quietly when she saw him standing there and she took a half-step back in surprise. "Um. Hi."

Standing this close to her, breathing in her scent untouched by anything else, nearly unmanned him. The black silk _yukata_ she wore, embroidered with dragons, was familiar to him, familiar enough that he knew what her body felt like beneath it, knew what her pale skin looked like framed by it. He felt his fingers twitch with the need to touch her so he shoved his hands into his pockets. "Ya cut yer hair."

"Yeah," she said, touching it in what seemed to be a self-conscious gesture. "Still not used to it, not completely at any rate. Did you cut yours? It looks shorter."

Logan turned his head so that she could see the length bound up, noticing the way her hand moved as if she were going to touch him before it fell back to her side, her lower lip catching in her teeth.

"I - I like it." She seemed unsure of what to say then, reaching up to tuck hair behind her ear.

The faint scent of cigarettes grew stronger and Logan felt someone else's presence a moment before Teva's drummer appeared. "Obviously not a reporter," he said in a slow drawl. "Got yourself an admirer, sweetheart?" he asked.

A low growl escaped Logan, unintentional on his part despite the possessiveness he still felt towards Teva.

"No, Aard." She stepped aside so that her body held the door open and the two men could see each other. "This is Logan. Logan, Aardwulf, my drummer."

The taller stepped forward and offered a hand in friendly greeting. "She mentioned you were short."

Logan accepted it and bared his teeth at him. "Could still kick yer ass, kid."

Aardwulf rocked back on his heels slightly, smug amusement coloring his scent. "Oh, no doubt. The way she talked ya up, though, seemed you'd be taller. I mean, superheroes are supposed to be the tall, strapping sort, ain't they?"

"If ya got somethin' to prove, boy, we can take this outside." Logan knew his temper was getting away with him but he found he didn't much care. If he could smack the boy around a little, maybe he'd feel a little better.

"Oh, for the love of Christ. Would the two of ye stop posturing like a couple of Bantam roosters?" Teva held up a hand between them, her tone exasperated as her accent broadened. "I dinnae need to deal with this, from either of ye when ye've got no call to fight over me."

The way she worded it made Logan wonder if he was wrong about her relationship with the other man; she wasn't moving to defend Aardwulf or standing in such a way as to indicate any kind of tie there.

"Seems the half pint here thinks he's got some kinda claim on ya, sweetheart."

"Seems to me ya ain't got the right to be callin' her pet names, boy."

"Ya might be a few years older than me but I ain't no 'boy', Shorty." Aardwulf took a step towards him.

Instead of yelling at them, Teva laughed. "Aard, he's like 120 years old, he could call Clint Eastwood 'boy' and get away with it." She put her hand on his chest. "Dinnae provoke him, I'll no be held responsible for what he does to ye if ye dinnae shut your mouth."

If Logan thought he was getting off that easily, he was wrong. She turned to look at him, amusement tempered with anger in her eyes. "I ken ye came here for a reason, Logan. Have out with it."

"Ya got company."

Teva rolled her eyes and made a frustrated noise. "He's leaving, are ye not?"

The drummer grunted. "Yeah, fine, whatever."

"Aard, dinnae act like a five-year-old." He walked past her and she gestured for Logan to come inside, grabbing Aardwulf's arm before he got too far. "Dinnae fash, I'll be fine and this is something that needs to happen. I'll talk to ye in the morning, aye?" She kept her voice pitched low but Logan could hear it anyway.

He grumbled. "He hurt ya, Teva, makes me powerful angry with him, ya know that."

"Aye, I do, but ye need to leave it be." She let him go and stepped back. "G'night, Aard."

"See ya, Aardvark." It was too much for Logan to resist.

Aardwulf turned back, one hand balling into a fist. Teva slid in front of Logan. "Go, please. He's an asshole, he's had a long time to polish that particular attribute."

"'Night, Teva. Call me if ya need me."

Teva watched him go and then turned back to Logan. "That was completely uncalled for, jackass."

"Can't help myself, babe, 'specially not where you're concerned."

She sighed, a long-suffering sigh, and closed the door behind her. "Take your boots off, the floors are _tatami_," she said, leaving him to it.

* * *

_Konbanwa_ is roughly "good evening" in Japanese.


	17. Chapter 17

Teva had nearly swallowed her tongue when Logan showed up at her door. It was funny, in a way, how much she'd waved away the worry of her friends that she was going to run into him here in Tokyo, and as she walked back into her suite she couldn't help shaking her head ruefully. She supposed it was rather inevitable that it had happened this way. If she'd believed in things like fate or destiny she might even think it was supposed to happen like this, but she knew better.

"Sorry about Aard."

Logan appeared in the doorway, having removed both boots and socks, leaving him barefoot like her. She watched him take in his surroundings quickly, the simple, tasteful decorations of black lacquer, the _shōji_ that separated the sitting room from the bedroom and the hidden private bath. The low table between the couch and the flatscreen TV where Conan O'Brian cavorted was covered with various foods, _sashimi_ and _nigiri_, a container of _soba_ with chopsticks sticking out of the noodles, two small stoneware cups with a matching container of _sake_ that Teva'd had two cups of.

He shrugged. "Don't worry about it. How long've ya been seein' him?"

She reached for her bottle of Pepsi on the side table. "Logan, he's not my boyfriend. We - slept together, once." She felt herself frowning and took a drink before setting the bottle back down. The remote was next to it and she used it to turn the TV off. "Not that it's any of your business what I did or did'nae do with any man who is'nae you."

He visibly relaxed, which she found curious, and it made her wonder exactly why he was here. "I thought - ah hell, doesn't matter what I thought." He scrubbed a hand over his face, messing up his muttonchops a bit; those were longer, too, which she found she liked. "I didn't know ya were playin' there tonight, Teva, Yukio dragged me out o' the apartment, promised me beer."

That annoyed her for some reason and she wasn't sure who she was more annoyed with, him for admitting he wouldn't have come otherwise, or herself for feeling like it mattered. "I guess ye would'nae have come otherwise, no reason for ye to."

"Ain't what I meant, girl. I didn't want that to be the first time we saw each other again, just some chance run-in neither one of us planned for."

"Does she make ye happy?" It was hard to keep the venom out of her voice, she'd seen the way Yukio looked at him, the possessiveness with which she touched him. And that damned little smirk on the woman's face, knowing Teva was watching ...

"What?" Genuine surprise made Logan's eyebrows rise. "Yukio? We're just friends."

"Friends with benefits, aye, dinnae give me that line."

Logan snorted. "Right, 'cause you didn't screw the Southern boy."

Teva felt herself move in a blur of speed, quickly enough to catch Logan off guard when her fist connected with his mouth. Instant numbness spread through her fingers, into her hand that she pulled back to cradle against her stomach. Blood trickled down his chin from where she'd knocked his lip into his teeth and split the skin.

His hand came up to touch the blood and he seemed surprised to see it.

"Ye son of a bitch," she growled, "ye dinnae have a right to question me about a goddamned thing. It took ye all of a month to run here to your little Japanese bitch and play house with her so dinnae ye dare act like you're on some kind of moral high ground here. _You're_ the one who decided this was over."

"I'm sorry. For this, for - for everything."

She chewed on her lip a moment, watching him warily. She didn't understand his calm reaction to her sudden display of violence any more than she understood why she'd lashed out, she'd never had such a physical temper. "Aye, well, it's a wee bit late for that, dinnae ye think?" she asked, her voice quiet but speaking volumes of the pain she felt. Dammit, she wanted to believe him, wanted nothing more than to accept his words. It bothered part of her to know that even after all of this, she'd take him back if he said the right thing. She curled up on the far side of the black couch, settling her _yukata_ around her.

"Almost a year late but no less true for all that." He wiped his blood onto his jeans, the wound already healed. "I fucked up somethin' royal an' I hate that I hurt you." There was no lie, no prevarication, nothing to indicate he was being anything less than truthful.

"Aye, ye did. Ye cut me up worse than your memories did when I was inside your head." Her hand came up to touch her face where she'd once borne the marks of what his memories had done to her. "Why now, Logan? Why come to me now and apologize when ye hung around the Institute for a month after?"

He looked down again, dropping his heavy body on the other end of the couch. It squeaked a little in protest at the weight of his metal skeleton. "Had a lot o' time to think, a lot o' time to feel sorry for myself. Didn't mean to hurt ya, darlin', but I let the hurt I was feelin' inside take over 'til I couldn't feel anything else." He held his hands palm-up in his lap, fingers overlapping slightly. "I took the decision away from ya, an' I can't ever tell ya how sorry I am for that. How sorry I am for lettin' ya go."

Feeling was beginning to return to Teva's hand and fingers, bringing with it pain, but an experimental flexing of her fist showed her nothing was broken; she'd seen men punch him in the face and come away with multiple fractures so she counted herself lucky. She looked at him, trying to get a read on him without actually using their link, which was still chained shut. She knew the set of his shoulders, his body language, well enough to know he was being sincere, that he felt everything he said he did. And she couldn't take her eyes off him, couldn't stop running her eyes over his profile, the curve of his skull, things so familiar to her she could close her eyes and still see him. The only difference was his hair, bound back tight enough to give the illusion that it was short until you saw the tail it made.

She made a noise, almost like a hiccup, that was dangerously close to a sob. This close to him she was having a harder time keeping her emotions in check, and she could tell he was fighting the urge to look up at her, to see what was in her eyes and on her face. "I never thought I'd hear ye say any of that, Logan. I figured I'd go back home after this tour was over, back to the Institute, back to my life as a teacher and a frigging superhero. I figured maybe you'd come home one day, too, that we'd be teammates if either of us could stand to be around one another. Thought a lot of things would happen, but never that."

"I never gave ya a reason to think anything else, to think anything would change."

"What _did_ change?"

He laughed, more an expelling of breath than real humor. "Got told off by an old friend, she kicked some sense into me, made me realize ..." Logan looked up at her finally, dark brown eyes not guarded as they usually were. "Made me realize I did somethin' to ya that was worse than what Creed did. Made me realize I had a good thing, a good woman who could be what I needed an' I gave that up."

Teva shifted on the couch, the hem of her _yukata_ rising to reveal the edge of the scars on her left thigh, enough to catch his attention. She didn't look at them, already knew how ugly they were despite how well they'd healed, instead paying attention to his reaction to them.

"Can I -"

She tugged the hem a little higher, keeping herself otherwise covered, so that the full extent of the wounds starting high up on her left hip could be seen. The skin was still pink in places, the scar tissue barely starting to fade, the places where the muscles had been too damaged for repair evident in the small dips under the surface. It would never look much better, she knew, not even if she lived to be Logan's age.

"God," he said, his hand reaching out to touch her before he seemed to realize what he was doing. She froze, her body going very still, but she didn't protest or pull away. He needed to see this, to see what she'd risked for him; maybe physical evidence could get through to him where everything else didn't. "Does it still hurt?" he asked, his callused thumb running alongside one long scar.

She tried to keep herself from shivering reflexively at his touch and almost failed. "Aye, some days are worse than others. Sometimes the muscles seize up and I cannae move until it eases up, not without hurting myself worse." Both of their voices were quiet as if afraid to speak any louder and break the spell. "I'm kind of afraid to think what it would look like if I did'nae have even a little of your healing factor."

His hand shifted, fingers moving down the scars, the placement almost a perfect match save for the fact his hands were much smaller than Creed's. The touch was almost too much, enough that she placed her own hand over his to still the movement. A soft sound, halfway between pain and need, escaped her, causing his hand to flex against her in memory. Her next sound was more pain than anything else, enough to make him pull away quickly.

"Shit, I'm sorry."

She was worrying at her lower lip with her teeth again. "Did'nae think I'd still feel this way after a year," she said quietly. She tugged her _yukata_ back down but her pale legs were still bare from the knees down. "I'm still so angry with ye, Logan. I cannae think about how much I still ..." Her voice cracked and she looked away, the hand she'd hit him with still clenched in her lap, throbbing in time to the quick beat of her heart. "I cannae think about how much I still love ye without thinking about how betrayed I felt the last time we spoke. How hurt and confused I was knowing that ye still loved me but ye were going to walk away despite that."

Teva could see it in his dark eyes, the question she'd just given him the answer to. "All I could think about was losin' ya, about what Creed had done to ya an' how somethin' like that could happen again and you'd be gone for good." He held her gaze with his almost stubbornly, like he needed her to see the truth. "Ain't makin' excuses, darlin', 'cause there ain't any to be made. Can understand if ya can't forgive me 'cause I sure as hell don't deserve it."

She was reaching for him before she completely realized what she was doing, the automatic gesture as familiar to her as anything else. "Dammit, I still love ye even after all that. There's a part of ye inside me that I cannae let go of but it is'nae the real thing, it is'nae you." Her fingers wrapped around his wrist. "I dinnae know that I'll ever forget it but I'm willing to give this a shot. What you and I have is'nae exactly something that comes along often, even in your extended lifetime."

Logan was silent a moment, eyes dropping down for a moment and catching her hand on his wrist. "Yer bleedin', Teva," he said, lifting her hand up. Her knuckles had split when she'd hit him but it was already healing, not as quickly as it would for him, but quickly enough.

"Aye, you've got a hard head, ye wee bastard." She wasn't sure if he was evading what she'd said, and she found herself getting more nervous the longer he hesitated before answering. She began pulling away, cursing herself for making a fool of herself yet again, but he caught her, pulled her close again.

He kissed her, softly, almost nothing more than a brush of lips.

She hesitated a moment, doubt and uncertainty in her eyes.

He touched her cheek with rough fingers. "I'm sorry," he said. "So sorry, baby, for everything." His eyes were drowning deep, pulling her in like they had in the beginning.

Teva's eyes closed and she pressed her mouth to his, her hands coming up to frame his face, his facial hair less of a tickle now that it was longer, almost soft. She couldn't get her fingers into his hair like she wanted but it didn't matter at the moment. All she wanted to do was taste him again, and both of them groaned when she sank her tongue into his mouth.

She'd dreamed of this, pulled the memory of him out on nights when she ached, physically and emotionally, her need for him a very real thing. The rawness of it had lessened somewhat as time went on but it never really went away, and the hollow memory was just that in comparison to the real thing. He burned hot even through his clothing, a side effect of the healing factor, warmed her up the same way his kisses did.

His teeth nipped at her lower lip and then he left her mouth to explore the smooth column of her neck, his teeth biting down over old scars from the first time they'd coupled, not breaking the skin this time. He licked and bit up the side of her neck, his hand gripping her hair gently to tug her head to the side for better access.

Logan pulled away a moment later, a fine tremor running through his body as he practiced what little restraint he seemed to have left. "I don't wanna push ya, Tev. I know I ain't got any right to expect this." There was a note in his voice that belied his words, told her he wanted nothing more than to pin her down and claim her again, but it was a clear mark of his honest remorse that he let her make the choice.

Part of her wanted to say 'no,' the same part that wanted to make him suffer for what he'd done to her, what he'd put her through. It seemed wrong somehow to take him back so quickly but she loved him, had never stopped no matter what she'd said and done.

Teva stood, her hands going to the belt of her _yukata_ so that it fell in a puddle at her feet, and she blushed a little when his dark eyes roamed over her naked body before returning to hers. "Answer enough?"

Logan got to his feet, reaching for her immediately to kiss her again. Neither one was willing to look away from the other so they stumbled to the bedroom, bumping into things, Teva's elbow knocking a lamp off of a table in her haste to remove Logan's shirt. Her hands slipped over the muscles of his chest and the springy hair, her nails digging in as they reached his shoulders and she fought to get closer. They tumbled onto the bed with her on top, Logan making an 'oof' sound that dissolved into a growl as he rolled so that she was on bottom.

Her body ached worse than it ever had before, not just from celibacy but because she'd been wanting him for over a year now, longing for him. She'd lost count of how many times she'd imagined being with him again, how many times she'd clung to the memory of him and used that to get herself off; it was never enough, each time leaving her wanting more. She watched him stand to unbutton the fly of his jeans, her eyes glued to his hands as they pushed the denim down past his hips until he kicked them off and was left as naked as she was. Memory didn't even begin to compare.

He knelt at the foot of the _futon_ mattress and reached for her right foot, lifting it and bending at the same time to kiss the inside of her ankle. He trailed more kisses up her leg, fingers tickling along the back of her knee so that she giggled and snorted, reflexively trying to pull away. His tongue darted out to taste her skin and she knew he could smell her arousal, saw it when he rolled his eyes up to look at her, the dark orbs saying without words just how much he needed her. The journey continued up to her waist and across it before he moved back down the other side.

When Logan approached the scars on her left leg his touch turned reverent. He kissed each claw mark in turn. Teva half expected him to apologize again for them but he remained silent as he worked his way down to her left ankle before he settled himself down on his stomach and lifted her legs up over his shoulders.

She reached behind her for pillows to prop herself up because watching him was half of what made the experience so good. Their eyes met again as he lowered his mouth to her, his tongue flattening out to give her lips a slow, soft lick that made her hips rise of their own volition until he pushed them back down, one hand sliding under her ass and the other coming up to to rest on her lower abdomen. Every nerve ending seemed to be focused between her legs and he took advantage of it, knew exactly what to do, knew exactly how she needed to be touched.

Teva's fingers curled against the sheets, one hand rising to cup a breast, and when she rolled the nipple between her thumb and forefinger he growled in approval, the sound vibrating against the most sensitive part of her. She cried out, eyes sliding halfway closed as if that would shut out the slow burn building inside of her.

"Forgot how good ya taste," Logan said, lapping slowly at the opening of her, his hand on her abdomen sliding down so that his thumb could rub maddening circles on her clit. He wasn't putting much pressure on it, just enough to make her hips gyrate to increase the sensation and he chuckled, nipping gently at the inside of her thigh. "Forgot how eager ya get."

"Can't believe I forgot how much ye like to torture me. Ah!" He pinched her clit and made her jerk. "Bastard."

He responded by sliding a finger inside of her, her inner walls clamping down greedily on it and dragging a low moan from her. "What was that again?" he asked.

"I called ye a bastard. Oh, sweet Christ," she said when he added a second finger, pumping in and out of her slowly, curling up a bit to touch a spot inside of her that made her writhe and wriggle. "Please, Logan, I cannae take much more."

"You'll take whatever I give ya." He gave her clit little flicks of his tongue, her hips jerking with each touch. "Teva, baby, open the link."

"What?" Her eyes were half-open again and clouded over with need, and she stared at him a little confused.

"The link," he said, rather patiently. "Wanna feel ya when ya go over."

She bit her lip and frowned, having to concentrate to think past the haze of need fogging her brain. It didn't help any that he was still fucking her with his fingers and looking at her like he'd literally devour her, a starving man given what he'd wanted after so long going without. She reached for the link and felt the figurative chains fall away, her head falling back when she felt him again, there on the other side, and she very nearly wept with relief.

"All the way."

Teva let go, opened the door and felt everything lock into place. Logan lowered his mouth to her again and sucked her clit between his lips. "Oh, Logan," she breathed out, her orgasm hitting her a moment later in a near-blinding rush so that her eyes squeezed shut and she murmured unintelligibly. Logan crawled up her body and kissed her, giving her the taste of herself on his lips and she didn't mind. She opened her arms to him, whimpering something that was almost a protest when he began the slow, torturous process of re-accommodating her body to his.

"Take me in," he demanded, even as she dug her short, blunt nails into his shoulders. "That's it, baby."

She was so sensitive that it was nearly too much to handle. She put her hands on his hips to halt his movement. "Just gimme a second, aye?" she breathed out, bringing her hands back up to frame his face again so she could kiss him. She encountered the tie holding his hair back and tugged on it until it gave. "Ah, ye've the most beautiful hair I've ever seen on a man."

He chuckled, nipping at her lower lip and sucking on it for a moment. "If ya say so." His hips gave a little pump that made her fingers tighten as they sank into his hair. "Ya done catchin' yer breath?"

Her answer was to wrap her legs around him, ankles crossed over his lower back so that she could pull him in all the way. He groaned as the angle changed and he hit the end of her.

It didn't take long, Teva hitting the peak for a second time with each thrust that gave her the friction she needed, Logan followed not too long after. He remained above her for a few moments, holding his weight on his forearms so he didn't crush her.

"Are ye alright?" she asked, running her fingers through his hair. She'd have to make sure he never cut it again.

"If I can't cut my hair, then neither can you," he replied, making her realize she'd spoken over the link. "Fair's fair."

"Mmmm." She let him go, curling in against his body when he lay down beside her. "It's easier to take care of when it's longer, I'd forgotten that part. It'll take forever to grow back out."

Logan pressed his lips to her temple. "If yer healin' factor works the same way, it won't be that long."

Teva could feel his heartbeat beneath her hand on his chest, slowing down gradually. She'd never expected to find herself in his arms again, the reality of the situation still strange enough to make her wonder if she was going to wake up alone in the morning and find she'd dreamed the whole thing.

"I'm right here," he said quietly. "Ain't goin' anywhere, not unless ya kick my ass to the curb."

She smiled. "How about I just kick your ass and we'll call it even?"

He lifted his head enough to look at her, his eyebrow quirked. "Eh, I guess I deserve it. Can it wait until we're back home?"

"Aye, I think it can."

He settled back down, drawing the covers up a little further when Teva shivered. They were both exhausted, for similar and dissimilar reasons, and she could feel him slipping into sleep as quickly as she was.

"Love ya, darlin'," he said, his voice already fading fast.

Hearing him say it again after so long put a smile on her face. _~I love ye, too.~_

* * *

_Shōji are the traditional transparent screens that separate rooms._ _Nigiri (or Nigirizushi) is the type of sushi that is a piece of fish or shellfish over a small oblong mound of rice. Sashimi is merely raw fish slices. I'm sure y'all know what sake is. Japanese futons aren't like the American type, though; they're strictly used on the floor with some kind of protective mat under them to keep them clean, and frequently they are rolled up or otherwise put away during the day so that a room becomes multipurpose._ _It is also very, very bad form to place chopsticks into a container so that they are sticking up/out; it recalls burning incense sticks placed in sand which is associated with funerals. I'm blaming Aardwulf for being a redneck._


	18. Chapter 18

Teva woke slowly, stretching arms and legs like a cat before rolling onto her back. When her hand met no resistance on the other side she opened her eyes to find Logan gone, panic kicking in for a moment until she spied his shirt lying halfway off the vanity chair. The bedroom was dimly lit, the sun peeking through curtains that kept most daylight out, a necessity for someone who found herself sleeping in more often than not while on tour. The bathroom door was open slightly but the room was dark.

"Logan?" she called as she sat up. She knew he wasn't far, his presence in her mind was too strong for that.

"In here," he called back, his voice coming from the direction of the sitting area. "Put yer robe on."

Her eyebrow rose but she didn't say anything, instead doing as asked. She glanced at herself in the mirror and ran her fingers through her mussed hair, smirking at her reflection when she saw the love bite at the hollow of her throat; Logan had woken her just a few hours ago for lazy sex, neither one fully awake or aware, just a joining of bodies before falling asleep again with their limbs twined together. She'd fully expected to wake again in the same position.

She saw the need for her _yukata_ the instant she slid the door back and stepped into the sitting room: Logan was standing near the door to the balcony, clad only in jeans with his arms crossed over his chest, while Yukio leaned up against the wall. The Japanese woman radiated anger and resentment, dark eyes flashing with it when she saw Teva standing there.

"You stole him from me," Yukio said, pushing off the wall, her long legs quickly eating up the distance between them. She stood several inches taller but Teva refused to take a step back, lifting her chin defiantly to look up at her.

"I _stole_ him?" she asked. "You never had him in the first place, not even when Mariko shunned him." It wasn't something she and Logan had spoken about; she'd gleaned the information from his memories, knew that more than once Yukio had been something of a rebound for him, someone to take comfort in when he couldn't have who he truly wanted. She saw the slap coming and brought her arm up to block it.

"He left you for a reason!" the taller woman hissed. "You couldn't handle the kind of man he is, you're not worthy of him."

Teva snorted and rolled her eyes. "I'm no worthy of him? I put my life on the line for him and brought him out of hell, gave him what he needed to survive. That's a damn sight better than the way ye take advantage of him when he's hurting, I think."

With a growl Yukio launched herself at Teva, and Teva knew she was outmatched, didn't have the kind of martial arts training the other woman did. She pulled on Logan's skills as easily as she pulled on his emotions but even then she didn't have the same kind of discipline or understanding that would allow her to get the upper hand. The most she could do was strike out with her telepathy and all that did was stun the taller woman for a moment.

Logan grabbed Yukio and pulled her back, kept his arms tight around her torso, easily holding her away. "Knock it off," he told her, giving her a little shake. _~Both of you~_ he added for Teva alone. _~Let me handle this.~_

Teva backed off, leaning her butt against the arm of the couch. As much as she wanted to punch the other woman, she also felt sorry for her, felt pity for the fact she clearly loved the short Canadian and knew that love would never be returned. It probably felt like a kick in the stomach to find out he'd gone back to the woman he loved, again.

"Why would you do this?" Yukio was asking. Logan had released her but stood close enough to grab her if he needed to. "She hurt you, Logan-san, deeply. I have never done anything to make you question how I feel for you."

He sighed. "She didn't hurt me, 'kio, _I_ hurt _her_. I fucked up but this ain't about that, it ain't about what happened between she and I." He glanced aside at Teva and she could see how frustrated he was. "When I came to Tokyo and ya found me, ya said ya couldn't give me back what I'd lost, and I thought that meant that ya knew my heart belonged to someone else."

"It's always belonged to someone else." Yukio ducked her head, looking away from him. Her anger was softening into something no less negative, sadness and loss that Teva herself had been feeling not even 24 hours ago. "Wasn't I there for you, after Mariko? I've never placed any demands on you, I wouldn't have let you walk away just because of your own stubbornness and grief."

"I'm standing right here, ye besom, dinnae speak as if I'm not." Teva's patience for being maligned only went so far.

"Teva-"

"I'm not deaf," she shot back. "And it is'nae my fault if she cannae deal with the fact that ye dinnae love her."

_~Leave. Off.~_

_~Keep her under control or I will.~_ They glared at each other a moment and it was he who looked away first, back at Yukio.

"We can't keep doin' this, Yukio. I came to Japan to get my head back on straight an' if I led ya astray, made ya think I was gonna stay with ya, then I fucked up and I'm sorry for that." He touched her arm, sighing when she jerked back from him. "If ya wanna hit me, go ahead, but don't attack Teva, this is between you an' me."

"Did you ever care for me?" Yukio asked, her voice soft but strong. She shed no tears.

Logan sighed again. "I've always cared for ya, 'kio, just ... not the way ya want. Ya been a friend when I needed one, one o' the best I ever had."

She made a disgusted sound, her shoulders hitching briefly but still she didn't cry. "I'll always be that, and nothing more." She went to the balcony door and slid it open, looking back over her shoulder at Teva for a moment. The look on her face was deadly serious. "Take care of him, _gaijin_, or I will make sure you regret it."

Teva slumped when she was gone, her hands coming up to dig into her hair. "Jesus Christ, where'd she come from?" she asked.

"She was sittin' here when I woke up. She's as good as me for gettin' into places she shouldn't be, an' better in some respects." He came to her, reaching for her hand. "I'm sorry 'bout that, I was hopin' to keep ya outta that."

"She had to see me, say what she wanted to say to my face." Teva shrugged. She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "In her mind I'm the reason for her problems, your involvement is merely ... incidental."

Logan snorted at her. "Ya make it sound like I don't matter."

"Y'ken what I mean, she has to focus on me to make the situation more bearable for herself." She let him go to rub her hands on her upper arms, feeling a little chilled, more mental than physical. "She loves ye verrae much so ye cannae do wrong in her eyes."

"And in your eyes?"

"Mmphmm." The sound encompassed a lot of things, both positive and negative. "I'll get back to ye on that one, shall I?" She moved away to begin gathering up the food that unfortunately had stayed out all night, placing it in the trash can and tying the bag up so it wouldn't stink up the place.

Logan watched her for a few moments. "I didn't think she'd attack ya like that," he said finally.

Teva straightened from placing the bag next to the door and looked at him. "Oh, really? I knew almost as soon as I saw her that she would." She shrugged, pushing her hair back and making a disgusted noise when it fell back into her face. "Ye dinnae choose women who are meek and demure, Logan, it is'nae in your nature. It only stands to reason that she'd blow up like that, considering how verrae much in love with ye she is. I feel sorry for her."

"She knew goin' in what it meant bein' with me, back when I was in love with M'iko, and now." His words were matter of fact but she read from him the underlying remorse and the disgust with himself that he hadn't pushed Yukio away from the very beginning.

"I was worried I'd be doing the same to Aardwulf," Teva offered by way of commiseration. "He told me he just wanted to see me smile again."

Logan grunted. "I'm just surprised ya slept with him in the first place, that ain't exactly your style, darlin'."

It was an intensely uncomfortable topic and she wanted to shy away from it, but she wasn't angry with him for bringing it up. "I - I still dinnae ken why I did it. There was a pub fight in Edinburgh and after it felt like my body was guiding me, like some part of me was demanding I do something about all the adrenaline running through me."

"Sounds a lot like me after a fight." His eyes met hers and she saw the thought in them. "Ya mighta gotten more o' me than just the healin' factor, Tev. Can't tell ya how many times we've come outta the Danger Room an' it's all I can do to not just push ya up against the wall an' take ya right there. It's like a drive, an imperative, somethin' I gotta struggle against when the animal gets too close to the surface."

Teva nibbled on her lip a moment, thinking that over; she _had_ noticed a change in herself after she'd mimicked Logan's power, more obvious right after she'd awoken in the medlab, but with no further outbursts she'd sort of forgotten about it. Apparently it had diminished without leaving completely, giving her just enough to make her act a little out of sorts. "Regardless, we both likely did things we otherwise would'nae. That's usually what happens when ye break up with someone and it's messy, ye end up doing stupid shit."

Logan came close and touched her arm, gripping it just above where she'd been hit with a bullet once upon a time. "I'm sorry."

"I know ye are, _mo chride_, and I hope that's the last time you'll say that in the near future. All that matters now is your actions." Her fingers moved of their own volition to tuck his hair back behind his ear, something she'd never had the opportunity to do before; it was terribly endearing that his hair flopped into his eyes, like a little boy's, and for a moment the child he'd once been peeked out. A smile twitched her lips up.

"What?" he asked, head tilting to the side.

"Seeing ye as a wee lad," she replied softly, fingers now tracing over his heavy brow and the perpetual frown between his eyes. "James Howlett. I never imagined I'd get to see ye in that state." It brought further memories to the surface, better ones than what they'd encountered in his mind, memories of long summers playing outside or cold nights being read to by Rose, curled under a blanket before the hearth. When he leaned in against her she let him, keeping him steady against the current.

"Ye have'nae been looking at them, have ye?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Mostly just livin' day to day."

"And avoiding your memories like the plague." She smirked when he huffed at her. "I know ye, Logan. As hard as ye chased after your past I ken it cannae be easy to have it all crammed into your brain like so much stuffing." She let her hand drop to his shoulder, felt the shift of muscles there and how tightly coiled he was.

"I couldn't control 'em, after ..." He paused a moment and, if he'd been her, he'd have chewed on his lip or done something to indicate he was wary of discussing this. Instead he just went silent until he decided to speak again. "I think ya were holdin' 'em back, 'fore I went an' fucked things up. Never had a headache like that before."

Teva grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the couch. "C'mere," she said, taking a seat and pushing him down to sit on the floor between her legs. Her hands were strong from years of playing instruments and she dug into the knots in his muscles, smiling when he groaned in mingled pain and relief. She bent her head over his and placed a kiss on his crown as she slipped down their link to get a better look at just what he'd done with his memories. Slowly she pushed open the door into his head, not wanting to disturb anything, but he let her in without so much as a grunt.

Inside she found a new door on the opposite wall, one that bulged at the edges like doors sometimes did in cartoons when there was something on the other side pushing against it, and she had a pretty good idea where his memories had gone. He'd shoved them behind that door and they were threatening to break loose, the latch unable to hold much more.

"Don't poke at it," he grumbled, shifting uneasily under her hands.

"Hush, ye wee gobshite. I did'nae do all that work just to have them come back out and kill ye." She worked her thumbs into the tendons of his neck and had him nearly purring, using that to keep him distracted. Inside the mindscape she touched the door and felt it tremble with the force of what lay beyond. With a metaphysical inhale she opened it, using all of her strength to keep the memories from tumbling out and overwhelming her.

A hand on her back made her look up and she found Logan standing there beside her. Without speaking he pulled everything out and let her organize it so that, once they were finished, everything fit neatly inside and the door closed flush with the wall.

Teva opened her eyes and leaned over Logan, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind. "When you're ready to start looking at them, we'll take them out one at a time."

"I'd say I don't need the help but that's just me bein' a stubborn shithead."

"At least ye can admit to it." The expenditure of power left her almost as exhausted as she'd been before sleeping the night before (or really, that morning), and she yawned widely. "Jesus, no wonder I was out for a day after running around in your head the last time, it's like slogging through a bloody peat bog."

"Do much o' that back home?" Logan asked with a small laugh.

Teva frowned. "What, ye mean Scotland?"

"Ain't that home?"

She rested her head on top of his. "Aye, once upon a time, it was, but not since I left there almost a decade ago. Have'nae had a home since then, not until I came to Xavier's." She felt Logan's hands come up to touch her arms, hanging onto her and offering comfort. "And now I find that you've become my home. I've felt verrae lost since ye left, like I was'nae safe anywhere no matter what I did."

"Won't leave ya again, darlin'. Ya got me wrapped 'round yer finger an' I don't want ya to let go."

Teva sniffled, tears beginning to sting her eyes. "And no, I did'nae run around in peat bogs," she said, trying to lighten the moment. "Too much chance I'd run into one of the bog bodies."

Logan snorted. "Can't say as that'd be on my top ten list of fun things." He turned his body so he could look at her, impatiently pushing his hair back out of his face when it flopped down again. "I wanted to ask ya how much longer yer tour is, I wasn't exactly followin' the itinerary."

"Just one more city, actually. I'll be in Sydney, Australia next week, Warren paced things so I'd have a week in each city, do maybe a couple shows." She smirked. "I bullied him into making sure I had the time to relax in between, I dinnae want to go back to the days of running all across the bloody planet like my arse is on fire."

"So ya don't got anywhere to be for a while?"

Teva shook her head. "I've got a meet-and-greet tonight but that's it until Thursday. Ye thinking of sticking around?"

"If ya want."

"Of course I want." She bent and kissed his forehead. "Come with me to Sydney, we'll see the Opera House and maybe a kangaroo or two before we go back to Xavier's."

He leaned into her body, radiating heat and contentment that made her feel like she was wrapped in a favorite blanket. "Ya been drinkin' again?" he asked, apparently looking at the bottle of _sake_ still on the table.

She tried to pull away but he didn't let her, merely turning his head to look up at her. "Started again not too long before the tour kicked off." She sighed. "Last night was the first night I have'nae."

"It stops now, Teva."

"Logan, I dinnae think-"

"Teva." He said her name sharply, cutting her off. "I ain't kiddin'. Ya got a problem, ya had a problem before ya came to the Institute, an' I ain't gonna let ya keep goin' down that road." He touched her chin when she looked away, making her look back. "I'll stop, too, ain't fair on ya if I keep doin' it."

"I wish I could have stopped myself, but that first drink ... my mother had a drinking problem, too, and I swore up, down and sideways I would'nae."

Logan rubbed his thumb along her jaw. "Doesn't make ya weak, darlin', it's in yer genes. But ya ain't alone here, baby, I got ya." His hand slid around the back of her neck and pulled her mouth down to his, kissing her gently, slowly.

"Mmmm." She couldn't argue with that, didn't want to; no one else had ever tried to stop her, to tell her they'd hold her hand and walk her through that dark patch. None of her former bandmates had ever really been able to look past their own problems and it was pretty much par for the course for musicians to have substance abuse habits.

They leaned their foreheads together when the kiss ended. "I'll have to get my things from Yukio's place," Logan said after a moment. "That's gonna be a barrel o' fun."

Teva smirked. "I cannae say that I envy ye that trip. She will'nae stop ye, though."

"Nah, she'll just give me puppy dog eyes the whole time and sigh a whole bunch." He let her go and got to his feet. "Should go do that 'fore too much time has passed."

She followed him into the bedroom, handing him his T-shirt and unabashedly watching him put it on. "I'll be here, I need a shower and I've got some stuff I need to email to Warren."

"It ain't gonna be a problem, me travelin' with ya?"

"No, it'll just get some of the gossip rags talking, and I never cared about them, anyway." She pulled him close and kissed him again, the novelty of having him near again having not worn off.

He gave a happy little growl, hands slipping down over her hips to grab her butt. "I don't hafta go right this moment."

Teva laughed. "Go, ye wee beast. I really want that shower."

Logan huffed at her, nipping at her lower lip before letting her go, looking around the room. "Dammit, lost my hair tie."

"Hold on, I've got a box full of them." She went into the bathroom and got him one.

"Thank God it's not pink," he grumbled, gathering his hair back smoothly.

"As if I'd ever own anything of that color. I may have tits but I am'nae a girly-girl."

"Thank God for that, too." He snatched one more kiss before heading for the door. "Hey, Teva?"

She turned in the doorway to the bathroom, head cocked to the side. "Aye?"

A rare genuine smile lit up his face as he looked at her. "I love ya, darlin'."

"I know."

"Did you just Han Solo me?" he asked, his eyebrow going up.

Teva grinned. "I believe I just did, Princess."

"You did not just call me 'Princess'." His brows drew down but his anger was faked. "I gotta teach ya yer place, girl?"

The grin turned into a smirk. "You can spank me later. Now get on with ye. I'll be waiting for ye to come home to me."

"I'll always come home to ya."

* * *

_A besom is a derogatory Scottish term for a woman of "low moral standing." Apparently it's also the term used for a certain type of broom in witchcraft (the more you know). Pronounced "bee-zum."_ _Aaaaand that's it, kids, at least for this fic. There's more to come in a new story. Thanks for reading!_


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